Heritage Of Australia

» There are many types of heritage places that are not well known to the wider community.

» Heritage places identified during the year include the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the City of Adelaide Historic Layout, the former defence site on Middle Head and George's Heights in New South Wales, the National Gallery of Australia, the High Court of Australia, the High Court/National Gallery Precinct, four places associated with the overland telegraph line in the Northern Territory, Finniss Springs Mission and Koonibba Mission in South Australia, and several sites in the wheatbelt region of Western Australia which forms part of one of the most botanically rich provinces in Australia.

» Australia is commonly known as the oldest continent. Zircons dated between 4,300 and 4,200 million years have been found in the Archean rocks of the Mt Narryer area of Western Australia , and the microfossils and stromatolites of the Pilbara, also in WA, are amongst the earliest known life on Earth. The old shield which forms a major part of the Australian continent is largely a flat and low-lying plateau, tectonically quiet and with one of the lowest erosion rates known. Deep weathering profiles dating to the Mesozoic and even earlier have survived, as have the corresponding ancient landscapes. Australia is an old continent, with extensive areas of little or no outcrop, and with little exposure of the old and deep regolith below. Landforms are often extremely old and their surfaces have changed little in millions of years.

» Parks in each state and in the territories provide valuable protection and management for many geological heritage sites; often the initial impetus for setting up such parks has been their geological features and landscape values. National Park status is also used to provide management of Australia 's numerous World Heritage areas, many of which are of geological and landscape significance, for instance the Riversleigh and Naracoorte fossil areas.