Bernie Joyce

Convener

Standing Committee for Geological Heritage

Geological Society of Australia

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.

This contrasts with the northern hemisphere continents, where late-Tertiary and Quaternary uplift and extensive glacial erosion have given a very different landscape. Only in Tasmania and the higher parts of the South Eastern Australia mainland can landscapes similar to those of Europe be found.

The study of geological heritage in the former Gondwana continents, such as Africa, South America, India and Australia, may need a different approach to that used elsewhere.

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.

A broad area approach might be developed, perhaps using aspects of the toposequence approach used by soil workers and land system mappers to cover large areas with little outcrop or regolith exposure.

Whatever the way forward, there are some major problems that need addressing. These encompass updating of records, funding, fair treatment of Earth heritage, and the everyday practicalities of conserving the best sites for educational and research purposes.

In terms of current data, state and national work on reports and files, now often 20 years old, needs updating. This is particularly important when planning issues arise; documentation must be able to withstand close scrutiny.

On funding, because of a likely lack of national money in future, new sources must be found to enable work to continue. Australian workers must increasingly look to state or even local sources of support.

As the Australian government continues its current programme of devolving responsibilities to the states, heritage workers must increase co-operation with the states and begin using state registers.

World Heritage listing in Australia continues to grow, with the Blue Mountains in NSW a current nomination. Australian geologists must play their part in seeing geological heritage is fairly treated in current and new World Heritage areas.

Pressing issues of practical management include:

• Consolidation of quarrying — many small pits are now commonly being replaced by one or two large excavations which generally develop rapidly, and are then reclaimed or filled in almost as rapidly. New techniques of slope-battering and vegetation planting may limit exposures even during operation, and related landforms such as volcanic cones may be altered or completely destroyed.

• Mining and exploration activities — mines which do go ahead are often larger-scale than in the past, and give rise to problems like those of large-scale quarrying.

• Covering over of road cutting exposures and landform features — new cuttings are now routinely being covered over and planted with grass and bushes. However, given Australian weather conditions, this often does not work very well anyhow! Many of our teaching and conference excursion stops are road cuttings...where would we be without these exposures? Landform and landscape views from established view-points are also lost by so-called "revegetation" often without any historic evidence that vegetation is being restored to an earlier state. Examples include the Organ Pipes National Park near Melbourne, set up to display the well-developed columnar jointing in a young lava flow, which is now largely hidden behind rapidly-growing plantings of native vegetation.

Perhaps our next heritage problem is the greening of the Australian countryside!

The above may seem like a formidable list, but Australia’s strong record of Earth heritage conservation activity will stand it in good stead to meet the challenges ahead.

Geological heritage studies in Australia go back over 30 years to the first work by Geological Society of Australia (GSA) groups in Queensland and South Australia. From the mid-1960s and into the 1970s, Society Divisions (corresponding to states and territories) organised sub-committees to begin pinpointing and promoting individual sites. Correspondence and visits to the UK by Maud McBriar of South Australia and other workers helped provide new ideas. In the mid-1970s, with the aid of government grants, programs of identifying, documenting, evaluating and recommending management of sites began across Australia.

The National Estate Grants Program, set up in 1973, and the Australian Heritage Commission (AHC), founded in 1975, provided a long series of government grants for studying features of Australia’s National Estate, and nominating them to the newly established Register of the National Estate. Grants totalling more than A$320,000 over the subsequent 25 years have resulted in more than 25 substantial volumes of documentation.

A Standing Committee for Geological Heritage was established in the GSA in 1974 to help improve the flow of ideas between the sub-committees. It is also charged with liaison with Government and providing advice on World Heritage matters. Its main objective is to promote understanding and conservation of Australia’s geological heritage.

Techniques developed by the UK’s Nature Conservancy Council were an important influence on GSA work, although each GSA sub-committee developed its own methods of determining the significance of sites. The AHC built on some of this geological expertise to determine the significance of sites at local, regional, national and international levels for the Register of the National Estate.

A consolidated list of Australian sites of international and national significance, drawn from sub-committee documentation, was published in 1986.

The GSA’s statement on policy in 1992 included the recommended use of the term S i g n i f i c a n t G e o l o g i c a l Features, which are defined as: "those features of special scientific or educational value which form the essential basis of geological education, research and reference. These features are considered by the geological community to be worthy of protection and preservation."

This definition emphasises the two-fold use of features in education, and for scientific research and as reference sites, for example type localities and sections.

A recent grant from the AHC enabled the GSA’s Standing Committee members and other interested heritage workers to meet at two workshops in Canberra and prepare a two-volume methodology report which will assist with future geological heritage work in Australia. The assessment volume is available via the Web at www.gsa.org.au/heritage.htm. The report includes a review of geological heritage methodologies used in Australia and overseas, and a list of heritage publications by the Society.

The result of the GSA’s work is that Australia has for years been recognised internationally as a leader in geological conservation.

Work at state government level includes consultant projects such as those of Rosengren in Victoria, including his recent study on the Late Cainozoic basaltic eruption points of Victoria carried out with the GSA’s Victorian sub-committee and the National Trust of Australia (Victoria). A recent methodology to include geomorphological and soil features has been developed in the Forestry and Parks and Wildlife agencies of the Tasmanian government, and a major Victorian government-sponsored study discussed the evaluation of caves and karst.

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.

Other reserves which provide some protection for geological sites include road reserves, water reserves, state flora and fauna reserves, and in Victoria, for example, the small geological sites set up by the state Land Conservation Council.

However, few parks services employ or work with geologists, and management and interpretation are strongly biased towards biological and ecological aspects.

Geological research including sampling is restricted in National Parks, and new geological work by exploration or mining companies is usually banned. There have been significant problems of management in World Heritage areas such as the Willandra Lakes, and many National Parks are poorly funded and interpreted.

Nevertheless, given the country’s awareness of the importance of Earth heritage conservation, these are issues that will be taken on board and dealt with.

Prepared:
16th September 1999