Central Freshwater Biogeographic Province

Central Freshwater Biogeographic Province – Geology and topography

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Geology

The geology of the FBP is quite diverse, volcanic and sandstone sediments occur frequently.  In general the soils of the FBP have a low fertility the main exception to this is the Central Coast vegetation bioregion.  The Australian Natural Resources Atlas[1] has more detailed geological descriptions about the various vegetation bioregions composing the Central FBP:

• Brigalow Belt North consists of Permian volcanics and Permian-Triassic sediments of the Bowen and Galilee Basins, Carboniferous and Devonian sediments and volcanics of the Drummond Basin and coastal blocks, Cambrian and Ordovician rocks of the Anakie inlier and associated Tertiary deposits.
• Einasleigh Uplands consists of high ranges and plateau surfaces of Palaeozoic sediments, granites, and basalts. The region generally has diverse geology ranging from Mesozoic sandstones occurring as small plateaus, alluvium, Permian granites Palaeozoic sediments, acid volcanics and rugged ranges on folded sediments and igneous rocks.
• The Desert Uplands are broadly defined as consisting of ranges and plains on dissected Tertiary surface and Triassic sandstones. The climate is semi-arid and soils are mostly of poor structure and low fertility. Phosphorous is particularly lacking in most soil types except in the alluvial areas.
• The Central Mackay Coast consists of fertile alluvial coastal plains.

Terrain

The Central FBP has, on average, a low relief ratio, with a mean for the FBP of 0.02. High relief ratio areas are however spread throughout the FBP and predominate in coastal parts. Stream segment slope values are also on average low, with higher values corresponding to areas with high relief ratio values.

Central FBP is dominated by the erosional flatness index class and erosional areas are spread throughout the FBP. Depositional valley bottom flat areas occur in the western Burdekin and central Fitzroy catchments. Only a small proportion of the FBP contains ridge top flat areas.

Information about terrain

Information about methods

Summary Maps of FBP Terrain  

State Terrain Map

Information about geology

References

1. ^ ANRA (2002), Australian Natural Resources Atlas. [online], ANRA. Available at: https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/australian-natural-resources-atlas-anra.

Last updated: 22 March 2013