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171-747: The geology of the Australian Capital Territory includes rocks dating from the Ordovician around 480 million years ago, whilst most rocks are from the Silurian . During the Ordovician period the region—along with most of eastern Australia —was part of the ocean floor. The area contains the Pittman Formation consisting largely of quartz-rich sandstone, siltstone and shale; the Adaminaby Beds and

342-582: A dense rock equivalent volume of as much as 1,140 cubic kilometres (270 cu mi). Remarkably, this appears to have had little impact on life. There was vigorous tectonic activity along northwest margin of Gondwana during the Floian, 478 Ma, recorded in the Central Iberian Zone of Spain. The activity reached as far as Turkey by the end of Ordovician. The opposite margin of Gondwana, in Australia, faced

513-410: A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev . The decades that followed saw further exploration by French, American, and British expeditions. The first confirmed landing was by a Norwegian team in 1895. In the early 20th century, there were a few expeditions into the interior of the continent. British explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton were

684-587: A biogeographic affinity with Gondwana, and the Alborz margin of Gondwana was linked biogeographically to South China. Southeast Asia's fauna also maintained strong affinities to Gondwana's. North China was biogeographically connected to Laurentia and the Argentinian margin of Gondwana. A Celtic biogeographic province also existed, separate from the Laurentian and Baltican ones. However, tropical articulate brachiopods had

855-465: A burst of volcanic activity that deposited new silicate rocks, which draw CO 2 out of the air as they erode. Another possibility is that bryophytes and lichens, which colonized land in the middle to late Ordovician, may have increased weathering enough to draw down CO 2 levels. The drop in CO 2 selectively affected the shallow seas where most organisms lived. It has also been suggested that shielding of

1026-525: A continent fragment on board bumped into the east coast of what is now Australia, forming the Delamerian Orogeny . The remains of the mountains of this orogeny can be found near Broken Hill and in eastern South Australia , western Victoria , and western Tasmania . This happened between 520 and 480 million years ago up to the Cambrian period. No associated ocean floor has been preserved by obduction in

1197-582: A deep embayment between Siberia and the Central Mongolian terranes . Most of the terranes of central Asia were part of an equatorial archipelago whose geometry is poorly constrained by the available evidence. The period was one of extensive, widespread tectonism and volcanism. However, orogenesis (mountain-building) was not primarily due to continent-continent collisions. Instead, mountains arose along active continental margins during accretion of arc terranes or ribbon microcontinents. Accretion of new crust

1368-524: A delta. The sea level was relative higher during this depositional phase compared with the earlier and later subaerial volcanic deposit periods. Its age is early Ludlow. This has been determined by shelly marine fossils, and a tonalite intrusion southwest of Red Hill with age determined as 417±8 Mya. Outcrops occur on Red Hill (the hill) and throughout Deakin, Australian Capital Territory and in southern Yarralumla, and also Hughes, Australian Capital Territory . The formation extends from Red Hill and Woden in

1539-603: A distinct band around the Earth, and that the breakup of the parent body may have formed a ring system for a period of about 40 million years, with frequent falling debris causing these craters. The Ordovician was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate . Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids , calcitic cements, and invertebrate faunas with dominantly calcitic skeletons. Biogenic aragonite , like that composing

1710-517: A few blue-ice areas , the wind and sublimation remove more snow than is accumulated by precipitation. In the dry valleys, the same effect occurs over a rock base, leading to a barren and desiccated landscape. Antarctica is colder than the Arctic region, as much of Antarctica is over 3,000 m (9,800 ft) above sea level, where air temperatures are colder. The relative warmth of the Arctic Ocean

1881-464: A given landmass were severely affected. Tropical lifeforms were hit particularly hard in the first wave of extinction, while cool-water species were hit worst in the second pulse. Those species able to adapt to the changing conditions survived to fill the ecological niches left by the extinctions. For example, there is evidence the oceans became more deeply oxygenated during the glaciation, allowing unusual benthic organisms (Hirnantian fauna) to colonize

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2052-511: A mild climate. West Antarctica was partially in the Northern Hemisphere , and during the time, large amounts of sandstones , limestones , and shales were deposited. East Antarctica was at the equator, where seafloor invertebrates and trilobites flourished in the tropical seas. By the start of the Devonian period (416  Ma ), Gondwana was in more southern latitudes, and the climate

2223-619: A more cosmopolitan distribution , with less diversity on different continents. During the Middle Ordovician, beta diversity began a significant decline as marine taxa began to disperse widely across space. Faunas become less provincial later in the Ordovician, partly due to the narrowing of the Iapetus Ocean, though they were still distinguishable into the late Ordovician. Trilobites in particular were rich and diverse, and experienced rapid diversification in many regions. Trilobites in

2394-457: A native bacterial community within the subterranean water body of Lake Vostok . The existence of life there is thought to strengthen the argument for the possibility of life on Jupiter 's moon Europa , which may have water beneath its water-ice crust. There exists a community of extremophile bacteria in the highly alkaline waters of Lake Untersee . The prevalence of highly resilient creatures in such inhospitable areas could further bolster

2565-665: A number of mountain ranges in the region, the most prominent being the Ellsworth Mountains. The presence of the West Antarctic Rift System has resulted in volcanism along the border between West and East Antarctica, as well as the creation of the Transantarctic Mountains. East Antarctica is geologically varied. Its formation began during the Archean Eon (4,000 Ma–2,500 Ma), and stopped during

2736-605: A party, with provisions for one month, to discover the Murrumbidgee River . Joseph Wild was accompanied by James Vaughan , a constable, and Charles Throsby Smith , a nephew of the explorer Charles Throsby . Detailed instructions had been given to the explorers by Charles Throsby, who had accompanied the Lake George exploration party earlier in the year. They were provided with acid to test for limestone . On 7 December 1820, Smith recorded in his journal: ... Came on to one of

2907-654: A period known as the Ordovician meteor event . It has been theorized that this increase in impacts may originate from a ring system that formed around Earth at the time. In 2008, the ICS erected a formal international system of subdivisions for the Ordovician Period and System. Pre-existing Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, Chinese, Mediterranean and North- Gondwanan regional stratigraphic schemes are also used locally. The Ordovician Period in Britain

3078-528: A set of island arcs. The accretion of these arcs to the eastern margin of Gondwana was responsible for the Benambran Orogeny of eastern Australia. Subduction also took place along what is now Argentina (Famatinian Orogeny) at 450 Ma. This involved significant back arc rifting. The interior of Gondwana was tectonically quiet until the Triassic . Towards the end of the period, Gondwana began to drift across

3249-581: Is 1–3 cm (0.39–1.18 in). From the end of the Neoproterozoic era to the Cretaceous , Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana . Modern Antarctica was formed as Gondwana gradually broke apart beginning around 183 Ma. For a large proportion of the Phanerozoic , Antarctica had a tropical or temperate climate , and it was covered in forests. During the Cambrian period , Gondwana had

3420-492: Is a 2-metre thick bed of ashstone across a broad area that can be used as a marker bed. In the 1840s fossils of brachiopods and trilobites from the Silurian period were discovered at Woolshed Creek near Duntroon . At the time these were the oldest fossils discovered in Australia, though this record has now been far surpassed. [1] These fossils were from the Canberra Formation. In the past these rocks were known as

3591-748: Is a member of the Canberra formation and is found is eastern Narrabundah and in a geological monument along Fairbairn avenue. Ashstone is a fine grained tuff. In addition to the ashstone the Canberra Formation has layers of green-grey to reddish dacite, also tuff, quartz andesite, but mostly it is calcareous shale, limestone or sandstone. Much is deeply weathered, which has posed difficulties for building foundations. Walker Volcanics appear as purple or greenish-grey dacitic ignimbrite. These volcanics contain chloritised cordierite and some have garnet. They are Wenlock age. They occur in southern Belconnen including Macquarie, Weetangera, Hawker, Page, Scullin, Higgins, Holt and

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3762-533: Is almost 18,000 km (11,200 mi) long: as of 1983 , of the four coastal types, 44% of the coast is floating ice in the form of an ice shelf , 38% consists of ice walls that rest on rock, 13% is ice streams or the edge of glaciers, and the remaining 5% is exposed rock. The lakes that lie at the base of the continental ice sheet occur mainly in the McMurdo Dry Valleys or various oases . Lake Vostok , discovered beneath Russia's Vostok Station ,

3933-636: Is an unconformity, with Camp Hill Sandstone lying on top. There is probably up to 200 metres thickness of this shale. The shale was deposited in the deep sea as turbidites. It can be found in Yarralumla, Parkes , Acton , north and south of Black Mountain , and from Lawson , to Crace and Ngunnawal . Black Mountain Sandstone is deposited on top of State Circle Shale conformably. It is made up from thick beds of grey quartz sandstone mostly, but has some beds included of siltstone and grey shale . The grain size

4104-545: Is at least 700 metres. The magma was formed by melting an aluminium -rich pelitic sediment. The eruption came from a volcano into shallow sea water. The deposits built above sea level as they progressed. The underlying sediments now make up the Canberra Formation. Between Hall and Nanima Hill on Spring Range, the Mount Painter Volcanics lie unconformably on top. These rocks date from the Late Wenlockian epoch of

4275-471: Is being revealed by techniques such as remote sensing , ground-penetrating radar , and satellite imagery . Geologically, West Antarctica closely resembles the South American Andes . The Antarctic Peninsula was formed by geologic uplift and the transformation of sea bed sediments into metamorphic rocks . West Antarctica was formed by the merging of several continental plates , which created

4446-472: Is called the Cotter Horst. This was probably in a different position relative to Canberra, compared to the present. From here, ocean floor turbidite deposits occurred in the Ordovician period. The sediments were deeply buried by being compressed and faulted down. Melting occurred in deep sediments and in the basaltic oceanic crust beneath. The magmas mingled and intruded upwards. The Murrumbidgee Batholith

4617-449: Is caused by the emission of chlorofluorocarbons and halons into the atmosphere, which causes ozone to break down into other gases. The extreme cold conditions of Antarctica allow polar stratospheric clouds to form. The clouds act as catalysts for chemical reactions, which eventually lead to the destruction of ozone. The 1987 Montreal Protocol has restricted the emissions of ozone-depleting substances. The ozone hole above Antarctica

4788-682: Is divided into West Antarctica and East Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains , which stretch from Victoria Land to the Ross Sea . The vast majority of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet , which averages 1.9 km (1.2 mi) in thickness. The ice sheet extends to all but a few oases , which, with the exception of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, are located in coastal areas. Several Antarctic ice streams flow to one of

4959-463: Is evidence of a large number of volcanoes under the ice, which could pose a risk to the ice sheet if activity levels were to rise. The ice dome known as Dome Argus in East Antarctica is the highest Antarctic ice feature, at 4,091 metres (13,422 ft). It is one of the world's coldest and driest places—temperatures there may reach as low as −90 °C (−130 °F), and the annual precipitation

5130-408: Is expected to add about 11 cm (5 in) to global sea level rise . Marine ice sheet instability may cause West Antarctica to contribute tens of centimeters more if it is triggered before 2100. With higher warming, instability would be much more likely, and could double global, 21st-century sea-level rise. The fresh, 1100-1500 billion tons (GT) per year of meltwater from the ice dilutes

5301-495: Is exposed in this cutting. Llanvirnian age (Pygodus serrus conodont zone). Fossils found include Phyllograptus anna, Trigonograptus ensiformus, Pterograptus, Didymograptus, Isograptus, Hallograptus from the Darriwillian age. Near the top of the formation are fossils Dicellograptus sextans, D divaricatus, D salopiensis, which are Gisbornian. Chemical analysis reveals low concentrations of sodium , calcium and strontium because of

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5472-424: Is fine to medium. It was originally named by Öpik after the mountain— Black Mountain where it is found. Originally it was believed to be Ordovician, but is actually from the Silurian period, late Llandoverian epoch. Some of the slopes of Black mountain are covered in fanglomerate . The deposition was in a marine proximal turbidite fan, with the turbidity current flowing to the east. There are no fossils, but there

5643-462: Is found on the west side of Queanbeyan, extending north to Dundee, and south around the east side of Jerrabomberra Hill. Acton shale is only preserved in the cores of synclines, being eroded from uplifted parts. Brachiopods , conodonts and sponges fossils are rarely found. The beds are up to 60 metres thick and appear high in the Pittman Formation. The age range is Gisbornian to Bolindian of

5814-567: Is little limestone evident at the surface in the district, but an outcrop at Acton , near the Museum of Australia, by the shores of Lake Burley Griffin . These formations became exposed when the ocean floor was raised by a major volcanic activity in the Devonian forming much of the east coast of Australia. Much of the western and southern parts of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) are made from granite-like rocks. These are from

5985-482: Is marked by a sudden abundance of hard substrate trace fossils such as Trypanites , Palaeosabella , Petroxestes and Osprioneides . Bioerosion became an important process, particularly in the thick calcitic skeletons of corals, bryozoans and brachiopods, and on the extensive carbonate hardgrounds that appear in abundance at this time. Green algae were common in the Late Cambrian (perhaps earlier) and in

6156-569: Is predicted to slowly disappear; by the 2060s, levels of ozone are expected to have returned to values last recorded in the 1980s. The ozone depletion can cause a cooling of around 6 °C (11 °F) in the stratosphere . The cooling strengthens the polar vortex and so prevents the outflow of the cold air near the South Pole, which in turn cools the continental mass of the East Antarctic ice sheet. The peripheral areas of Antarctica, especially

6327-408: Is some sedimentary structure including plane, cross or convolute laminations, load casts, slump units and flute moulds. Tidbinbilla Quartzite has been modified by granite intrusions close by. It consists of medium grained sandstone, partly silicified and changed to quartzite. Belts of silstone and sandstone are included becoming more frequent at the top. The exposure is 300 metres thick. Low down there

6498-441: Is the largest subglacial lake globally and one of the largest lakes in the world. It was once believed that the lake had been sealed off for millions of years, but scientists now estimate its water is replaced by the slow melting and freezing of ice caps every 13,000 years. During the summer, the ice at the edges of the lakes can melt, and liquid moats temporarily form. Antarctica has both saline and freshwater lakes. Antarctica

6669-500: Is transferred through the Arctic sea ice and moderates temperatures in the Arctic region. East Antarctica is colder than its western counterpart because of its higher elevation. Weather fronts rarely penetrate far into the continent, leaving the centre cold and dry, with moderate wind speeds. Heavy snowfalls are common on the coastal portion of Antarctica, where snowfalls of up to 1.22 m (48 in) in 48 hours have been recorded. At

6840-639: The Antarctic Circle (one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the world), Antarctica is surrounded by the Southern Ocean . Rivers exist in Antarctica; the longest is the Onyx . Antarctica covers more than 14.2 million km (5,500,000 sq mi), almost double the area of Australia, making it the fifth-largest continent, and comparable to the surface area of Pluto . Its coastline

7011-492: The Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean ), it contains the geographic South Pole . Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe , and has an area of 14,200,000 km (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet , with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi). Antarctica is, on average,

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7182-641: The Beardmore Glacier by Frank Wild on the Nimrod Expedition in 1907, and low-grade coal is known to exist across many parts of the Transantarctic Mountains. The Prince Charles Mountains contain deposits of iron ore . There are oil and natural gas fields in the Ross Sea. Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest of Earth's continents. Near the coast, the temperature can exceed 10 °C in summer and fall to below −40 °C in winter. Over

7353-463: The Cambrian , reef -forming corals appeared in the early Ordovician, including the earliest known octocorals , corresponding to an increase in the stability of carbonate and thus a new abundance of calcifying animals. Brachiopods surged in diversity, adapting to almost every type of marine environment. Even after GOBE, there is evidence suggesting that Ordovician brachiopods maintained elevated rates of speciation. Molluscs , which appeared during

7524-622: The Cretaceous period (146–66 Ma), though southern beech trees ( Nothofagus ) became prominent towards the end of the Cretaceous. Ammonites were common in the seas around Antarctica, and dinosaurs were also present, though only a few Antarctic dinosaur genera ( Cryolophosaurus and Glacialisaurus , from the Early Jurassic Hanson Formation of the Transantarctic Mountains, and Antarctopelta , Trinisaura , Morrosaurus and Imperobator from Late Cretaceous of

7695-400: The Devonian . The first land plants are known from this period. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life. Fish , the world's first true vertebrates , continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. About 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth per year during the Ordovician compared with today in

7866-662: The Early Triassic . The Antarctic Peninsula began to form during the Jurassic period ( 206 to 146 million years ago ). Africa separated from Antarctica in the Jurassic around 160 Ma, followed by the Indian subcontinent in the early Cretaceous (about 125 Ma). Ginkgo trees, conifers, Bennettitales , horsetails , ferns and cycads were plentiful during the time. In West Antarctica, coniferous forests dominated throughout

8037-807: The Monaro Basin remained in the Captains Flat area. A second unconformity occurred after the Black Mountain Sandstone was uplifted and eroded at the end of the early Silurian. This was called the Quidongan Deformation. The Canberra formation was deposited in shallow water with limestone , and shale forming. There were some small volcanic activities at this stage with dacite and ashstone layers included. Several stages of volcanic activity followed. The first stage with Paddys River Volcanics, Walker Volcanics in west Canberra, Hawkins Volcanics in

8208-683: The Murrumbidgee River . The Kosiusko uplift elevated the land in the Snowy Mountains and Southern Highlands areas. This uplift reactivated the Murrumbidgee Fault, the Queanbeyan Fault and the Lake George Fault. Minor mining operations have occurred historically throughout the region, both for precious metals including gold , silver , lead , and copper , and for construction materials. The only commercial operations now here are

8379-519: The Northern Hemisphere , an eventual decline of fisheries in the Southern Ocean and a potential collapse of certain marine ecosystems . While many Antarctic species remain undiscovered, there are documented increases in Antarctic flora , and large fauna such as penguins are already having difficulty retaining suitable habitat. On ice-free land, permafrost thaws release greenhouse gases and formerly frozen pollution. Scientists have studied

8550-513: The Ordovician period. Lower beds contains fossils like Dicranograptus nicholsoni. Upper beds contain Climacograptus bicornbis, Chastatus, C tubuliferis, Dicellograptus elegans, and Dicranograptus hians which are late Eastonian in age. The sediments making the Acton Shale were deposited in the ocean in a reducing environment starved of oxygen, and lacking fresh sediment. The State Circle Shale

8721-732: The Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia. Avalonia collided with Baltica towards the end of Ordovician. Other geographic features of the Ordovician world included the Tornquist Sea , which separated Avalonia from Baltica; the Aegir Ocean, which separated Baltica from Siberia; and an oceanic area between Siberia, Baltica, and Gondwana which expanded to become the Paleoasian Ocean in Carboniferous time. The Mongol-Okhotsk Ocean formed

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8892-680: The Silurian period. They were formed about the same time as the Walker Volcanics and Paddys River Volcanics. The Ainslie Volcanics occur on Mount Ainslie, Mount Majura , and in a band extending from Bonshaw and Harman north to the east of Woolshed Creek, through Majura and at least to Gooroo Hill and Old Joe on the NSW border. On Mount Ainslie the sequence starts with dacitic tuff, banded dacitic tuff, massive dacitic tuff, fifty metres of agglomeratic tuff, massive dacitic tuff, fifty metres of ashstone and topped with massive dacitic tuff. The rocks on top of

9063-653: The Tasmanides , the deformed rocks of the orogen that make up the core of the old mountain range that makes up the Australian continent east of the Tasman Line . These rocks are an addition to the Proterozoic core of the continent. The Tasmanides are the result of compression, horizontal shortening, and vertical thickening of various "terranes" such as small continental fragments and volcanic island arcs that were plastered against

9234-420: The crust-like lichen Buellia frigida , has been used as a model organism in astrobiology research. The same features can be observed in algae and cyanobacteria , suggesting that they are adaptations to the conditions prevailing in Antarctica. This has led to speculation that life on Mars might have been similar to Antarctic fungi, such as Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri . Some of

9405-464: The endocerid cephalopods died out completely, except for possible rare Silurian forms. The Ordovician–Silurian extinction events may have been caused by an ice age that occurred at the end of the Ordovician Period, due to the expansion of the first terrestrial plants , as the end of the Late Ordovician was one of the coldest times in the last 600 million years of Earth's history. On the whole,

9576-523: The ozone layer in the atmosphere above Antarctica since the 1970s. In 1985, British scientists, working on data they had gathered at Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf , discovered a large area of low ozone concentration over Antarctica. The 'ozone hole' covers almost the whole continent and was at its largest in September 2006; the longest-lasting event occurred in 2020. The depletion

9747-520: The ACT. During the Palaeozoic era at least a few thousand kilometres of the ocean floor were subducted , taking of the order of a hundred million years. Sediments were deposited in the ocean floor in the form of fans formed by turbidity currents off the side of a continental slope . The flow was in the northerly direction, indicating that the continental slope was to the south. These deposits occurred during

9918-508: The ACT. This deformation was connected with the attachment of the terrane to the continent. During this stage metamorphism occurred. In the Canberra Graben and Cullarin Block, metamorphism mostly reached the upper greenschist stage, with shallow burial and temperature below 350 °C. This changed the volcanics and sediments with sericitisation , saussuritisation , conversion of plagioclase to albite , and conversion of biotite to chlorite , titanite , epidote and opaque minerals. On

10089-418: The Acton Shale. Most of the younger rocks are pyroclastic deposits from explosive volcanic eruptions , but the Yarralumla Formation is a sedimentary mudstone / siltstone formation that was formed around 425 million years ago . In the 1840s fossils of brachiopods and trilobites from the Silurian period were discovered at Woolshed Creek near Duntroon by the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke . At

10260-405: The Ainslie Volcanics are composed of Dacitic ignimbrite and minor volcaniclastic and argillaceous sediments . The lithology is bluish grey dacitic tuff, which can be massive or foliated, also dacitic agglomerate and shale. These volcanics contain chloritised cordierite and some have red almandine garnet . Jasper is found on low hills on the north side of the Molonglo River . The thickness

10431-402: The Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773, in December 1773, and again in January 1774. Cook came within about 120 km (75 mi) of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of field ice in January 1773. In 1775, he called the existence of a polar continent "probable", and in another copy of his journal he wrote: "[I] firmly believe it and it's more than probable that we have seen

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10602-526: The Antarctic Peninsula) have been described. During the early Paleogene , Antarctica remained connected to South America as well as to southeastern Australia. Fauna from the La Meseta Formation in the Antarctic Peninsula, dating to the Eocene , is very similar to equivalent South American faunas; with marsupials , xenarthrans , litoptern , and astrapotherian ungulates , as well as gondwanatheres and possibly meridiolestidans . Marsupials are thought to have dispersed into Australia via Antarctica by

10773-423: The Antarctic Peninsula, are then subjected to higher temperatures, which accelerate the melting of the ice. Models suggest that ozone depletion and the enhanced polar vortex effect may also account for the period of increasing sea ice extent, lasting from when observation started in the late 1970s until 2014. Since then, the coverage of Antarctic sea ice has decreased rapidly. Most species in Antarctica seem to be

10944-441: The Antarctic Peninsula: Deschampsia antarctica (Antarctic hair grass), Colobanthus quitensis (Antarctic pearlwort) and the non-native Poa annua (annual bluegrass). Of the 700 species of algae in Antarctica, around half are marine phytoplankton . Multicoloured snow algae are especially abundant in the coastal regions during the summer. Even sea ice can harbour unique ecological communities, as it expels all salt from

11115-418: The Cambrian Period. It is built on a craton of rock, which is the basis of the Precambrian Shield . On top of the base are coal and sandstones, limestones, and shales that were laid down during the Devonian and Jurassic periods to form the Transantarctic Mountains. In coastal areas such as the Shackleton Range and Victoria Land, some faulting has occurred. Coal was first recorded in Antarctica near

11286-404: The Cambrian or even the Ediacaran , became common and varied, especially bivalves , gastropods , and nautiloid cephalopods. Cephalopods diversified from shallow marine tropical environments to dominate almost all marine environments. Graptolites, which evolved in the preceding Cambrian period, thrived in the oceans. This includes the distinctive Nemagraptus gracilis graptolite fauna, which

11457-415: The Cambrian were succeeded by those that dominated the rest of the Paleozoic, such as articulate brachiopods, cephalopods , and crinoids . Articulate brachiopods, in particular, largely replaced trilobites in shelf communities. Their success epitomizes the greatly increased diversity of carbonate shell-secreting organisms in the Ordovician compared to the Cambrian. Ordovician geography had its effect on

11628-442: The Canberra Group with components of Turner Shale, Riverside Formation, and City Hill Shale. Canberra Formation can be found in the east part of South Canberra in Fyshwick , Kingston , Barton and Parkes . It is also found through North Canberra, excluding Campbell and Russell. It occurs through most of Gungahlin apart from Crace and Nicholls. The beds extend north in a wide band to 35 deg 03S near Bald Hill. Narrabundah Ashstone

11799-421: The Dapingian and the early Darriwilian. The Llanvirn corresponds to the late Darriwilian. The Caradoc covers the Sandbian and the first half of the Katian. The Ashgill represents the second half of the Katian, plus the Hirnantian . The Ashgill Epoch, the last epoch of the British Ordovician, is made of four ages: the Hirnantian Age, the Rawtheyan Age, the Cautleyan Age, and the Pusgillian Age. These ages make up

11970-567: The Early Eocene Climatic Optimum. Carbon dioxide levels were very high at the Ordovician period's beginning. By the late Early Ordovician, the Earth cooled, giving way to a more temperate climate in the Middle Ordovician, with the Earth likely entering the Early Palaeozoic Ice Age during the Sandbian, and possibly as early as the Darriwilian or even the Floian. The Dapingian and Sandbian saw major humidification events evidenced by trace metal concentrations in Baltoscandia from this time. Evidence suggests that global temperatures rose briefly in

12141-406: The Early Ordovician, leveling off somewhat during the middle of the period. Locally, some regressions occurred, but the sea level rise continued in the beginning of the Late Ordovician. Sea levels fell steadily due to the cooling temperatures for about 3 million years leading up to the Hirnantian glaciation. During this icy stage, sea level seems to have risen and dropped somewhat. Despite much study,

12312-543: The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event) was no less remarkable; marine faunal genera increased fourfold, resulting in 12% of all known Phanerozoic marine fauna. Several animals also went through a miniaturization process, becoming much smaller than their Cambrian counterparts. Another change in the fauna was the strong increase in filter-feeding organisms. The trilobite, inarticulate brachiopod, archaeocyathid , and eocrinoid faunas of

12483-490: The Hirnantian glaciation. As with North America and Europe , Gondwana was largely covered with shallow seas during the Ordovician. Shallow clear waters over continental shelves encouraged the growth of organisms that deposit calcium carbonates in their shells and hard parts. The Panthalassic Ocean covered much of the Northern Hemisphere , and other minor oceans included Proto-Tethys , Paleo-Tethys , Khanty Ocean , which

12654-423: The Late Ordovician argues that the mass extinction was a single protracted episode lasting several hundred thousand years, with abrupt changes in water depth and sedimentation rate producing two pulses of last occurrences of species. Antarctica Antarctica ( / æ n ˈ t ɑːr k t ɪ k ə / ) is Earth 's southernmost and least-populated continent . Situated almost entirely south of

12825-471: The Macquarie arc, with an associated submarine trench . The subducting Pacific plate was old, cold and dense, easily sinking into the mantle at a steep angle. The hinge zone of the plate also migrated oceanwards over time. So the trench retreated oceanwards, and the old trench and ocean floor become part of the continental plate. Volcanoes formed inwards from the trench. The part of the oceanic plate attached to

12996-518: The Muriarra Formation. This alternates between sandstone with a high quartz content and mica, and phyllite. Radiolarian chert is found in the central section. The railway forms the border between Queanbeyan in NSW and Oaks Estate in the ACT. West of the Queanbeyan railway station is a cutting where folding has overturned the beds, with axes dipping to the east at 50 degrees. 300 metres of thickness

13167-519: The Murrumbidgee Batholith intruding during the late Silurian or early Devonian times. Tectonics explains the large-scale structure of the Earth's crust and its constituent rocks in terms of blocks moving along faults , uplifted into horsts or downthrown into grabens . The ACT is positioned on the Australian continent , which was once a part of the supercontinent Gondwana . The ACT is in

13338-537: The Murrumbidgee River with coordinates 35°S deg 14' 38.3", 148°E deg 58' 13.6". Paddys River Mine or Cowley copper mine is located 700 m upstream on Paddys River . The host rock is a skarn where Shannons Flat Adamellite baked limestone from the Paddy's River Volcanics. The bulk of the mineral here is magnetite, but other sulfide and minerals of copper, lead zinc and silver attracted miners. Thomas Coyle operated

13509-463: The Ordovician of Wisconsin have been found with an age of about 460 million years ago, a time when the land flora most likely only consisted of plants similar to non-vascular bryophytes . Though stromatolites had declined from their peak in the Proterozoic, they continued to exist in localised settings. The Ordovician came to a close in a series of extinction events that, taken together, comprise

13680-455: The Ordovician period. The ocean floor was distant from the continental source of the sediment. Towards the end of this period there were isolated parts where no turbidity currents reached and only fine clay and animal organic and silica debris were deposited into oxygen-depleted deep water. This ocean basin has been called the Monaro Basin. To the north west was a volcanic chain of islands,

13851-472: The Ordovician were very different from their predecessors in the Cambrian. Many trilobites developed bizarre spines and nodules to defend against predators such as primitive eurypterids and nautiloids while other trilobites such as Aeglina prisca evolved to become swimming forms. Some trilobites even developed shovel-like snouts for ploughing through muddy sea bottoms. Another unusual clade of trilobites known as

14022-563: The Ordovician, when at least two volcanic island arcs collided with Laurentia to form the Appalachian Mountains . Laurentia was otherwise tectonically stable. An island arc accreted to South China during the period, while subduction along north China (Sulinheer) resulted in the emplacement of ophiolites. The ash fall of the Millburg/Big Bentonite bed, at about 454 Ma, was the largest in the last 590 million years. This had

14193-428: The Ordovician. The ice age was possibly not long-lasting. Oxygen isotopes in fossil brachiopods show its duration may have been only 0.5 to 1.5 million years. Other researchers (Page et al.) estimate more temperate conditions did not return until the late Silurian. The late Ordovician glaciation event was preceded by a fall in atmospheric carbon dioxide (from 7000 ppm to 4400 ppm). The dip may have been caused by

14364-557: The Ordovician. Terrestrial plants probably evolved from green algae, first appearing as tiny non- vascular forms resembling liverworts , in the middle to late Ordovician. Fossil spores found in Ordovician sedimentary rock are typical of bryophytes. Among the first land fungi may have been arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi ( Glomerales ), playing a crucial role in facilitating the colonization of land by plants through mycorrhizal symbiosis , which makes mineral nutrients available to plant cells; such fossilized fungal hyphae and spores from

14535-636: The Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress . Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it had in the earlier Cambrian Period, although the end of the period was marked by the Ordovician–Silurian extinction events . Invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods , dominated the oceans, with members of the latter group probably starting their establishment on land during this time, becoming fully established by

14706-521: The Pinnacle. Hawkins Volcanics is a green-grey dacite or dacitic tuff. These volcanics contain chloritised cordierite, and some have garnet. Their age is Ludlow to Wenlock. The volcanics occur in northern Belconnen, in Dunlop , Fraser , Spence , Mount Rogers, Flynn , Melba and Hall . Maximum thickness is 1770 m. Named after Mount Ainslie, Australian Capital Territory where their type location occurs,

14877-569: The South Pole the romanised Greek name polus antarcticus , from which derived the Old French pole antartike (modern pôle antarctique ) attested in 1270, and from there the Middle English pol antartik , found first in a treatise written by the English author Geoffrey Chaucer . Belief by Europeans in the existence of a Terra Australis —a vast continent in the far south of

15048-539: The South Pole. This contributed to the Hibernian glaciation and the associated extinction event. The Ordovician meteor event is a proposed shower of meteors that occurred during the Middle Ordovician Epoch, about 467.5 ± 0.28 million years ago, due to the break-up of the L chondrite parent body. It is not associated with any major extinction event. A 2024 study found that craters from this event cluster in

15219-628: The South to Yarralumla and Lake Burley Griffin in the north. The formation is evidence of the last major period when eastern Australia was still covered by shallow seas. It shows fossil evidence of trilobites , coral and primitive crinoids . Ordovician The Ordovician, named after the Welsh tribe of the Ordovices , was defined by Charles Lapworth in 1879 to resolve a dispute between followers of Adam Sedgwick and Roderick Murchison , who were placing

15390-579: The Stockmans Quarry at Pialligo which excavates Camp Hill Sandstone, and a large quarry on Mount Mugga Mugga which excavates Mugga Mugga Porphyry for construction gravel and concrete mix. A deposit of galena and copper carbonate was tunneled in the Balconnel Gold Mine around 1894. No significant gold was ever found there. The mine was 200 m downstream from the Molonglo River on

15561-579: The West Antarctic, the ocean has warmed by 1 °C (1.8 °F) since 1955. The warming of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica has caused the weakening or collapse of ice shelves , which float just offshore of glaciers and stabilize them. Many coastal glaciers have been losing mass and retreating, causing net-annual ice loss across Antarctica, although the East Antarctic ice sheet continues to gain ice inland. By 2100, net ice loss from Antarctica

15732-612: The Wuliuan, exploded in diversity during the Tremadocian, quickly becoming globally widespread. Several groups of endobiotic symbionts appeared in the Ordovician. In the Early Ordovician, trilobites were joined by many new types of organisms, including tabulate corals, strophomenid , rhynchonellid , and many new orthid brachiopods, bryozoans, planktonic graptolites and conodonts, and many types of molluscs and echinoderms, including

15903-498: The age of zircons from the interior of the Australian Shield , so the source of the sediments is from another continent. The other evidence from the Ordovician sediments are chemical composition indicates granitic source, with the absence of feldspar. Secondly the fine grained nature shows the sediments have been transported a long way from their ultimate, source, and could have been second cycle, derived from sedimentary rocks. At

16074-686: The area was high at 70 °C per kilometre. In the east side of the Cullarin Block, in the east-pointing finger of the ACT, the Tabberabberan Orogeny also reached the upper greenschist facies again. East–west pressure caused ruptures forming the Winslade and Deakin Faults and other northwest- or northeast-trending faults. A dyke of olivine teschenite intruded into the Red Rocks Gorge area of

16245-680: The argument for extraterrestrial life in cold, methane -rich environments. The first international agreement to protect Antarctica's biodiversity was adopted in 1964. The overfishing of krill (an animal that plays a large role in the Antarctic ecosystem) led officials to enact regulations on fishing. The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources , an international treaty that came into force in 1980, regulates fisheries, aiming to preserve ecological relationships. Despite these regulations, illegal fishing —particularly of

16416-771: The bedding planes as black films. In Canberra, the Acton Shale appears in several outcrops in Acton, in two bands through Aranda, through Bruce near the Calvary Hospital, on the Bruce Ridge behind Lyneham. Also another band starts under the University of Canberra in Belconnen, and heads north east through Lawson and Giralang and folded and faulted into several bands in Crace on Gungahlin Hill. Another band

16587-416: The biodiversity in Antarctica is still at risk from human activities. Specially protected areas cover less than 2% of the area and provide better protection for animals with popular appeal than for less visible animals. There are more terrestrial protected areas than marine protected areas . Ecosystems are impacted by local and global threats, notably pollution , the invasion of non-native species , and

16758-572: The climate cooled, though flora remained. After deglaciation during the latter half of the Early Permian , the land became dominated by glossopterids (an extinct group of seed plants with no close living relatives), most prominently Glossopteris , a tree interpreted as growing in waterlogged soils, which formed extensive coal deposits. Other plants found in Antarctica during the Permian include Cordaitales , sphenopsids , ferns, and lycophytes . At

16929-399: The coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average elevation . It is mainly a polar desert , with annual precipitation of over 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. About 70% of the world's freshwater reserves are frozen in Antarctica, which, if melted, would raise global sea levels by almost 60 metres (200 ft). Antarctica holds

17100-514: The colonial authorities in Sydney officially renamed the continent of New Holland to Australia, leaving the term "Terra Australis" unavailable as a reference to Antarctica. Over the following decades, geographers used phrases such as "the Antarctic Continent". They searched for a more poetic replacement, suggesting names such as Ultima and Antipodea . Antarctica was adopted in the 1890s, with

17271-497: The continent as a World Park . The Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary was established in 1994 by the International Whaling Commission . It covers 50 million km (19 million sq mi) and completely surrounds the Antarctic continent. All commercial whaling is banned in the zone, though Japan has continued to hunt whales in the area, ostensibly for research purposes. Despite these protections,

17442-476: The continent was compressed, the suboceanic crust was severely shortened and thickened as well, giving rise to a duplex structure. This happened at the end of the Ordovician period and in the Early Silurian . The sediments were heavily folded and overthrusted resulting in severe crustal shortening. In the Canberra area the sediments were raised above sea level and eroded. The land to the west (around Wagga Wagga )

17613-599: The continent's edge, strong katabatic winds off of the polar plateau often blow at storm force . During the summer, more solar radiation reaches the surface at the South Pole than at the equator because of the 24 hours of sunlight received there each day. Climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities occurs everywhere on Earth, and while Antarctica is less vulnerable to it than any other continent, climate change in Antarctica has been observed. Since 1959, there has been an average temperature increase of >0.05 °C/decade since 1957 across

17784-496: The continent, although it had been uneven. West Antarctica warmed by over 0.1 °C/decade from the 1950s to the 2000s, and the exposed Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 3 °C (5.4 °F) since the mid-20th century. The colder, stabler East Antarctica had been experiencing cooling until the 2000s. Around Antarctica, the Southern Ocean has absorbed more oceanic heat than any other ocean, and has seen strong warming at depths below 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Around

17955-402: The creation of small yet permanent polar ice caps. As CO 2 levels declined further the ice began to spread rapidly, replacing the forests that until then had covered Antarctica. Tundra ecosystems continued to exist on Antarctica until around 14-10 million years ago, when further cooling lead to their extermination. The geology of Antarctica, largely obscured by the continental ice sheet,

18126-507: The depths. These organisms were cosmopolitan in distribution and present at most latitudes. At the end of the second event, melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise and stabilise once more. The rebound of life's diversity with the permanent re-flooding of continental shelves at the onset of the Silurian saw increased biodiversity within the surviving Orders. Recovery was characterized by an unusual number of "Lazarus taxa", disappearing during

18297-549: The descendants of species that lived there millions of years ago. As such, they must have survived multiple glacial cycles . The species survived the periods of extremely cold climate in isolated warmer areas , such as those with geothermal heat or areas that remained ice-free throughout the colder climate. Invertebrate life of Antarctica includes species of microscopic mites such as Alaskozetes antarcticus , lice , nematodes , tardigrades , rotifers , krill and springtails . The few terrestrial invertebrates are limited to

18468-467: The details remain unresolved. In particular, some researches interpret the fluctuations in sea level as pre-Hibernian glaciation, but sedimentary evidence of glaciation is lacking until the end of the period. There is evidence of glaciers during the Hirnantian on the land we now know as Africa and South America, which were near the South Pole at the time, facilitating the formation of the ice caps of

18639-422: The diversity of fauna; Ordovician invertebrates displayed a very high degree of provincialism. The widely separated continents of Laurentia and Baltica, then positioned close to the tropics and boasting many shallow seas rich in life, developed distinct trilobite faunas from the trilobite fauna of Gondwana, and Gondwana developed distinct fauna in its tropical and temperature zones. The Tien Shan terrane maintained

18810-562: The early Eocene. Around 53 Ma, Australia- New Guinea separated from Antarctica, opening the Tasmanian Passage . The Drake Passage opened between Antarctica and South America around 30 Ma, resulting in the creation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that completely isolated the continent. Models of Antarctic geography suggest that this current, as well as a feedback loop caused by lowering CO 2 levels, caused

18981-604: The early Katian (Boda Event), depositing bioherms and radiating fauna across Europe. The early Katian also witnessed yet another humidification event. Further cooling during the Hirnantian, at the end of the Ordovician, led to the Late Ordovician glaciation . The Ordovician saw the highest sea levels of the Paleozoic, and the low relief of the continents led to many shelf deposits being formed under hundreds of metres of water. The sea level rose more or less continuously throughout

19152-445: The eastern ridge is altered. This was named after Mount Painter in Canberra by Öpik , who called it a porphyry. The description is a massive dark bluish-grey dacitic crystal tuff containing garnet and chloritised cordierite. There is a local appearance of agglomerate and pumice. There are prominent quartz and feldspar phenocrysts. Xenoliths include jasperised sediments and there are some beds of tuffaceous siltstone and sandstone. It

19323-479: The elevated inland, it can rise to about −30 °C in summer but fall below −80 °C in winter. The lowest natural air temperature ever recorded on Earth was −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) at the Russian Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983. A lower air temperature of −94.7 °C (−138.5 °F) was recorded in 2010 by satellite—however, it may have been influenced by ground temperatures and

19494-553: The end of that period. During the colder Neogene (17–2.5 Ma), a tundra ecosystem replaced the rainforests. The climate of present-day Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation to form. A combination of freezing temperatures, poor soil quality , and a lack of moisture and sunlight inhibit plant growth, causing low species diversity and limited distribution. The flora largely consists of bryophytes (25 species of liverworts and 100 species of mosses ). There are three species of flowering plants , all of which are found in

19665-519: The end of the Permian, the climate became drier and hotter over much of Gondwana, and the glossopterid forest ecosystems collapsed, as part of the End-Permian mass extinction . There is no evidence of any tetrapods having lived in Antarctica during the Paleozoic. The continued warming dried out much of Gondwana. During the Triassic, Antarctica was dominated by seed ferns (pteridosperms) belonging to

19836-425: The extinction and reappearing well into the Silurian, which suggests that the taxa survived in small numbers in refugia . An alternate extinction hypothesis suggested that a ten-second gamma-ray burst could have destroyed the ozone layer and exposed terrestrial and marine surface-dwelling life to deadly ultraviolet radiation and initiated global cooling. Recent work considering the sequence stratigraphy of

20007-479: The fauna that emerged in the Ordovician were the template for the remainder of the Palaeozoic. The fauna was dominated by tiered communities of suspension feeders, mainly with short food chains. The ecological system reached a new grade of complexity far beyond that of the Cambrian fauna, which has persisted until the present day. Though less famous than the Cambrian explosion , the Ordovician radiation (also known as

20178-558: The first rugose corals appeared. The planktonic graptolites remained diverse, with the Diplograptina making their appearance. One of the earliest known armoured agnathan (" ostracoderm ") vertebrates, Arandaspis , dates from the Middle Ordovician. During the Middle Ordovician there was a large increase in the intensity and diversity of bioeroding organisms. This is known as the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution. It

20349-454: The first to reach the magnetic South Pole in 1909, and the geographic South Pole was first reached in 1911 by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen . Antarctica is governed by about 30 countries , all of which are parties of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System . According to the terms of the treaty, military activity, mining, nuclear explosions , and nuclear waste disposal are all prohibited in Antarctica. Tourism , fishing and research are

20520-468: The first use of the name being attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew . Antarctica has also been known by the moniker Great White South , after which British photographer Herbert Ponting named one of his books on Antarctic photography, possibly as a counterpart to the epithet Great White North for Canada . Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of

20691-402: The gap of 12,000 km (7,456 mi). Large animals such as some cetaceans and birds make the round trip annually. Smaller forms of life, such as sea cucumbers and free-swimming snails , are also found in both polar oceans. Factors that may aid in their distribution include temperature differences between the deep ocean at the poles and the equator of no more than 5 °C (9 °F) and

20862-494: The genus Dicroidium , which grew as trees. Other associated Triassic flora included ginkgophytes , cycadophytes , conifers , and sphenopsids. Tetrapods first appeared in Antarctica during the early Triassic , with the earliest known fossils found in the Fremouw Formation of the Transantarctic Mountains. Synapsids (also known as "mammal-like reptiles") included species such as Lystrosaurus , and were common during

21033-520: The globe to balance the northern lands of Europe, Asia, and North Africa—had existed as an intellectual concept since classical antiquity . The belief in such a land lasted until the European discovery of Australia . During the early 19th century, explorer Matthew Flinders doubted the existence of a detached continent south of Australia (then called New Holland ) and thus advocated for the "Terra Australis" name to be used for Australia instead. In 1824,

21204-502: The globe. At the start of the period, the continents of Laurentia (in present-day North America ), Siberia , and Baltica (present-day northern Europe) were separated from Gondwana by over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi) of ocean. These smaller continents were also sufficiently widely separated from each other to develop distinct communities of benthic organisms. The small continent of Avalonia had just rifted from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening

21375-569: The highly prized Patagonian toothfish which is marketed as Chilean sea bass in the U.S.—remains a problem. In analogy to the 1980 treaty on sustainable fishing , countries led by New Zealand and the United States negotiated a treaty on mining. This Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activities was adopted in 1988. After a strong campaign from environmental organisations, first Australia and then France decided not to ratify

21546-536: The islands of the Kerguelen Plateau , the earliest of which formed around 40 Ma . Vinson Massif , in the Ellsworth Mountains , is the highest peak in Antarctica at 4,892 m (16,050 ft). Mount Erebus on Ross Island is the world's southernmost active volcano and erupts around 10 times each day. Ash from eruptions has been found 300 kilometres (190 mi) from the volcanic crater . There

21717-521: The location. Chemical Analysis The Pittman Formation was described originally by Öpik in 1958 who named it after the Pittman Valley, southeast of Aranda, Australian Capital Territory . It is entirely of Ordovician age and about 800 metres thick near Canberra, but at Captains Flat it is over 1,200 metres thick. The lower levels are greywacke , exposed east of Queanbeyan and north are very thick and heavily overturned and thrusted. At Etheridge Creek,

21888-519: The low feldspar content. The Ordovician turbidites , consisting of greywacke , feldspathic sandstone, micaceous siltstone, micaceous shale, chert, and phyllite , are very similar in all parts of the Tasman Orogen, including New Zealand and the Transantarctic Mountains . Detrital zircons from the turbidites have been isotopically dated with age ranges of 0.46 and 0.60 Gya, 1.0 and 1.2 Gya, and at ~1.8 Gya, ~2.2 Gya and ~2.7 Gya. These do not match

22059-467: The main human activities in and around Antarctica. During the summer months, about 5,000 people reside at research stations , a figure that drops to around 1,000 in the winter. Despite the continent's remoteness, human activity has a significant effect on it via pollution , ozone depletion , and climate change . The melting of the potentially unstable West Antarctic ice sheet causes the most uncertainty in century-scale projections of sea level rise , and

22230-814: The major current systems or marine conveyor belts which are able to transport eggs and larva . About 1,150 species of fungi have been recorded in the Antarctic region, of which about 750 are non- lichen -forming. Some of the species, having evolved under extreme conditions, have colonised structural cavities within porous rocks and have contributed to shaping the rock formations of the McMurdo Dry Valleys and surrounding mountain ridges. The simplified morphology of such fungi, along with their similar biological structures , metabolism systems capable of remaining active at very low temperatures, and reduced life cycles, make them well suited to such environments. Their thick-walled and strongly melanised cells make them resistant to UV radiation. An Antarctic endemic species,

22401-653: The many Antarctic ice shelves , a process described by ice-sheet dynamics . East Antarctica comprises Coats Land , Queen Maud Land , Enderby Land , Mac . Robertson Land , Wilkes Land , and Victoria Land. All but a small portion of the region lies within the Eastern Hemisphere . East Antarctica is largely covered by the East Antarctic Ice Sheet . There are numerous islands surrounding Antarctica, most of which are volcanic and very young by geological standards. The most prominent exceptions to this are

22572-529: The mine in 1895, producing 2.6 tons of copper and 26.1 kg of silver. In 1907 the Cowley Copper Syndicate Ltd started more work cutting two more adits and winzes. It was abandoned by 1909 as the ore was too low grade. More than a million tons of magnetite remain. Many minerals such as aurichalcite , bronchanite , caledonite , cerussite , hemimorphite , hydrozincite , linarite , native silver , rozenite , and zincsilite have been found at

22743-583: The north and Ainslie Volcanics in the north east had acidic lava volcanoes erupting. The next stage was Mount Painter Volcanics in middle Canberra, and Colinton Volcanics south of Queanbeyan and near Williamsdale . Then came a pause in volcanism at the start of the Upper Silurian with the Yarralumla Formation and Yass Formation sedimentary deposits. Volcanic activity resumed with Deakin Volcanics in

22914-514: The north west and south of Canberra. First rhyodacite was erupted followed by tuff , more rhyodacite, tuff with some underwater sediments, and finishing with rhyolite . At least four large eruptions made up this volcanic deposit. Over the top of this in the west near the Murrumbidgee River there was a further massive volcanic eruption, called Laidlaw Volcanics. West of the Murrumbidgee is another different geological setting. The tectonic block

23085-573: The north'). Antarcticus is derived from the Greek ἀντι- ('anti-') and ἀρκτικός ('of the Bear ', 'northern'). The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in Meteorology about an "Antarctic region" in c.  350 BCE . The Greek geographer Marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his world map from the second century CE, now lost. The Roman authors Gaius Julius Hyginus and Apuleius used for

23256-564: The ocean around Antarctica, including some that normally reside in the Arctic. The emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica; it and the Adélie penguin breed farther south than any other penguin. A Census of Marine Life by some 500 researchers during the International Polar Year was released in 2010. The research found that more than 235 marine organisms live in both polar regions, having bridged

23427-548: The ophiuroids ("brittle stars") and the first sea stars . Nevertheless, the arthropods remained abundant; all the Late Cambrian orders continued, and were joined by the new group Phacopida . The first evidence of land plants also appeared (see evolutionary history of life ). In the Middle Ordovician, the trilobite-dominated Early Ordovician communities were replaced by generally more mixed ecosystems, in which brachiopods, bryozoans, molluscs, cornulitids , tentaculitids and echinoderms all flourished, tabulate corals diversified and

23598-911: The original continental margin as a result of plate tectonic movements. The Tasmanides also extended into Antarctica in the south and northern China in the north, as these continental units were attached to Australia at the time, in Gondwana . The ACT is part of the Eastern Lachlan Fold Belt , which is located on a terrane that is called the Benambra Terrane in Victoria , but the Molong-Monaro Terrane in New South Wales . also known as Canberra-Yass Synclinorial Zone East also known as Canberra-Yass Synclinorial Zone west A plate with

23769-468: The plains we saw at 11 o’clock. At half past 1, came to a very extensive plain, fine Rich Soil and plenty of grass. Came to a Beautiful River plains that was running thro’ the plains in a S.W. direction, by the side of which we slept that night. When we made the Hut this evening, we saw several pieces of stone that had been burnt by all appearances. I then examined some of it, which proved to be limestone. ... There

23940-424: The record for the lowest measured temperature on Earth , −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). The coastal regions can reach temperatures over 10 °C (50 °F) in the summer. Native species of animals include mites , nematodes , penguins , seals and tardigrades . Where vegetation occurs, it is mostly in the form of lichen or moss . The ice shelves of Antarctica were probably first seen in 1820, during

24111-526: The saline Antarctic bottom water , weakening the lower cell of the Southern Ocean overturning circulation (SOOC). According to some research, a full collapse of the SOOC may occur a between 1.7 °C (3.1 °F) and 3 °C (5.4 °F) of global warming, although the full effects are expected to occur over multiple centuries; these include less precipitation in the Southern Hemisphere but more in

24282-468: The same rock beds in North Wales in the Cambrian and Silurian systems, respectively. Lapworth recognized that the fossil fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian systems, and placed them in a system of their own. The Ordovician received international approval in 1960 (forty years after Lapworth's death), when it was adopted as an official period of

24453-476: The same melting also affects the Southern Ocean overturning circulation , which can eventually lead to significant impacts on the Southern Hemisphere climate and Southern Ocean productivity. The name given to the continent originates from the word antarctic , which comes from Middle French antartique or antarctique ('opposite to the Arctic ') and, in turn, the Latin antarcticus ('opposite to

24624-400: The sea level dropped, and the vast shallow intra-continental Ordovician seas withdrew, which eliminated many ecological niches. When they returned, they carried diminished founder populations that lacked many whole families of organisms. They then withdrew again with the next pulse of glaciation, eliminating biological diversity with each change. Species limited to a single epicontinental sea on

24795-426: The sea, and about 49% of genera of fauna disappeared forever; brachiopods and bryozoans were greatly reduced, along with many trilobite , conodont and graptolite families. The most commonly accepted theory is that these events were triggered by the onset of cold conditions in the late Katian, followed by an ice age , in the Hirnantian faunal stage, that ended the long, stable greenhouse conditions typical of

24966-403: The second largest of the five major extinction events in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that became extinct. The only larger one was the Permian–Triassic extinction event . The extinctions occurred approximately 447–444 million years ago and mark the boundary between the Ordovician and the following Silurian Period. At that time all complex multicellular organisms lived in

25137-425: The shells of most molluscs , dissolved rapidly on the sea floor after death. Unlike Cambrian times, when calcite production was dominated by microbial and non-biological processes, animals (and macroalgae) became a dominant source of calcareous material in Ordovician deposits. The Early Ordovician climate was very hot, with intense greenhouse conditions and sea surface temperatures comparable to those during

25308-406: The species of fungi, which are apparently endemic to Antarctica, live in bird dung, and have evolved so they can grow inside extremely cold dung, but can also pass through the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Throughout its history, Antarctica has seen a wide variety of plant life. In the Cretaceous , it was dominated by a fern- conifer ecosystem, which changed into a temperate rainforest by

25479-683: The sub-Antarctic islands. The flightless midge Belgica antarctica , the largest purely terrestrial animal in Antarctica, reaches 6 mm ( 1 ⁄ 4  in) in size. Antarctic krill , which congregates in large schools , is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, being an important food organism for whales, seals, leopard seals , fur seals, squid , icefish , and many bird species, such as penguins and albatrosses . Some species of marine animals exist and rely, directly or indirectly, on phytoplankton . Antarctic sea life includes penguins , blue whales , orcas , colossal squids and fur seals . The Antarctic fur seal

25650-425: The sun's rays from the proposed Ordovician ring system, which also caused the Ordovician meteor event , may have also led to the glaciation. As the southern supercontinent Gondwana drifted over the South Pole, ice caps formed on it, which have been detected in Upper Ordovician rock strata of North Africa and then-adjacent northeastern South America, which were south-polar locations at the time. As glaciers grew,

25821-414: The time period from c. 450 Ma to c. 443 Ma. The Rawtheyan, the second last of the Ashgill ages, was from c. 449 Ma to c. 445 Ma. It is in the Katian Age of the ICS's Geologic Time Scale . During the Ordovician, the southern continents were assembled into Gondwana , which reached from north of the equator to the South Pole . The Panthalassic Ocean, centered in the northern hemisphere, covered over half

25992-505: The time these sediments were deposited the location was at least 3,000 km from the Australian continent. Underneath there is no Proterozoic continental basement, instead these sediments are lying on top of oceanic crust. Acton Shale is a grey to black thinly laminated siliceous shale containing graptolites . It is generally leached, and frequently silicified. The colour of the beds alternates between grey and black, but where weathered, it changes to whitish grey. The graptolites appear on

26163-402: The time these were the oldest fossils discovered in Australia, though this record has since been far surpassed. Other specific geological places of interest include the State Circle cutting and the Deakin anticline. The early European name for the district was "Limestone Plains". In 1820, following the discovery of Lake George and the Yass River , Governor Lachlan Macquarie decided to send

26334-405: The treaty. Instead, countries adopted the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the Madrid Protocol), which entered into force in 1998. The Madrid Protocol bans all mining, designating the continent as a "natural reserve devoted to peace and science". The pressure group Greenpeace established a base on Ross Island from 1987 to 1992 as part of its attempt to establish

26505-399: The trinucleids developed a broad pitted margin around their head shields. Some trilobites such as Asaphus kowalewski evolved long eyestalks to assist in detecting predators whereas other trilobite eyes in contrast disappeared completely. Molecular clock analyses suggest that early arachnids started living on land by the end of the Ordovician. Although solitary corals date back to at least

26676-414: The type locality is a repeating pattern of sandstone , micaceous sandy shale , mudstone , black argillaceous and radiolarian chert . In the sandstone beds there are occurrences of graded bedding , clay pellets, and current bedding. Fossils of graptolites , radiolarians , conodonts , and occasionally brachiopods and sponges are found. The geological formation east of Queanbeyan used to be known as

26847-411: The various effects of climate change . Early world maps, like the 1513 Piri Reis map , feature the hypothetical continent Terra Australis . Much larger than and unrelated to Antarctica, Terra Australis was a landmass that classical scholars presumed necessary to balance the known lands in the northern hemisphere. Captain James Cook 's ships, HMS  Resolution and Adventure , crossed

27018-412: The water when it freezes, which accumulates into pockets of brine that also harbour dormant microorganisms. When the ice begins to melt, brine pockets expand and can combine to form brine channels, and the algae inside the pockets can reawaken and thrive until the next freeze. Bacteria have also been found as deep as 800 m (0.50 mi) under the ice. It is thought to be likely that there exists

27189-579: The western margin in southwest Belconnen , Duffy , and Kambah in the Laidlaw and Walker Volcanics the temperature was lower and prehnite - pumpellyite facies was achieved. This was not sufficient to convert plagioclase to albite. More intense metamorphism occurred to the east of the Googong Dam , east of the ACT on the Molonglo Range and Yarrow Peak and Taliesin Hills. Psammitic schist and pellitic schist occur there. Within this region, there are two parallel belts of knotted schist even more strongly heated to over 525 °C. The temperature gradient in

27360-482: Was closed off by the Late Ordovician, Iapetus Ocean , and the new Rheic Ocean . For most of the Late Ordovician life continued to flourish, but at and near the end of the period there were mass-extinction events that seriously affected conodonts and planktonic forms like graptolites . The trilobites Agnostida and Ptychopariida completely died out, and the Asaphida were much reduced. Brachiopods , bryozoans and echinoderms were also heavily affected, and

27531-409: Was cooler, though fossils of land plants are known from then. Sand and silts were laid down in what is now the Ellsworth, Horlick , and Pensacola Mountains . Antarctica became glaciated during the Late Paleozoic icehouse beginning at the end of the Devonian period (360 Ma), though glaciation would substantially increase during the late Carboniferous . It drifted closer to the South Pole, and

27702-439: Was distributed widely during peak sea levels in the Sandbian. Some new cystoids and crinoids appeared. It was long thought that the first true vertebrates (fish — Ostracoderms ) appeared in the Ordovician, but recent discoveries in China reveal that they probably originated in the Early Cambrian . The first gnathostome (jawed fish) may have appeared in the Late Ordovician epoch. Chitinozoans, which first appeared late in

27873-400: Was formed, with several intrusions. The faults were reversed and the granites from the batholith became elevated. Small granite intrusions injected the rocks in the Canberra Graben around 408 million years ago. The Molong-Monaro Terrane was carried into position on the east coast of Australia. The Bowning Deformation caused the north–south faulting and long folding in the area surrounding

28044-440: Was limited to the Iapetus margin of Laurentia; elsewhere, the pattern was of rifting in back-arc basins followed by remerger. This reflected episodic switching from extension to compression. The initiation of new subduction reflected a global reorganization of tectonic plates centered on the amalgamation of Gondwana. The Taconic orogeny , a major mountain-building episode, was well under way in Cambrian times. This continued into

28215-469: Was mostly deposited from the air without water. Mount Painter Volcanics overlie the Walker Volcanics unconformably. The top is also an unconformity with Yarralumla Formation and Deakin Volcanics and Yass Formation. The age is of Late Wenlock epoch or early Late Silurian . These rocks form a belt from Coppins Crossing towards Narrabundah and Jerrabomberra Creek. In an intervening phase in volcanism predominantly sediments were deposited. Yarralumla Formation

28386-426: Was named after the suburb of Yarralumla by Öpik in 1958. It consists mainly of mudstone which may be cemented by lime, or originally derived from tuff. There are some beds inserted of quartz sandstone or limestone. The bottom of the formation is on top of the Mount Painter Volcanics. The top of the formation grades up into pyroclastics from the Deakin Volcanics. Deposition occurred in a shallow marine environment with

28557-512: Was named by Öpik in 1958. It is named after the street where it was described. Its age is Llandoverian . Its lithology is shale, mudstone, siltstone and minor sandstone. In the type location there is about 60 metres of non-calcareous sandy shale and dark grey shale with beds of fine-grained sandstone. Between Kings Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue, there is a good outcrop on State Circle, consisting of buff-coloured laminated siltstone and shale with fine sandstone beds contorted by slumping. Its top

28728-472: Was not recorded at a height of 2 m (7 ft) above the surface as required for official air temperature records. Antarctica is a polar desert with little precipitation ; the continent receives an average equivalent to about 150 mm (6 in) of water per year, mostly in the form of snow. The interior is dryer and receives less than 50 mm (2 in) per year, whereas the coastal regions typically receive more than 200 mm (8 in). In

28899-439: Was raised higher. An unconformity resulted between the Pittman Formation and the State Circle Shale and Black Mountain Sandstone deposited on top. State Circle Shale and Black Mountain Sandstone deposited in a marine environment as turbidites . The source of the Black Mountain sand was near by from the west, from the Wagga Wagga area. The Canberra area was on the proto-Canberra-Yass Shelf. East of Canberra deep water of

29070-412: Was traditionally broken into Early (Tremadocian and Arenig ), Middle ( Llanvirn (subdivided into Abereiddian and Llandeilian) and Llandeilo ) and Late ( Caradoc and Ashgill) epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, or Upper part of the column. The Tremadoc corresponds to the ICS's Tremadocian. The Arenig corresponds to the Floian, all of

29241-439: Was very heavily hunted in the 18th and 19th centuries for its pelt by seal hunters from the United States and the United Kingdom. Leopard seals are apex predators in the Antarctic ecosystem and migrate across the Southern Ocean in search of food. There are approximately 40 bird species that breed on or close to Antarctica, including species of petrels , penguins , cormorants , and gulls . Various other bird species visit

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