干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Geomorphological features on the southwestern margins of the Lake Eyre Basin provide a basis for interpreting the evolution of old landscapes containing pedogenic and groundwater silcretes. and thick bleached and weathered profiles. Recurrent sequences of cut-and-fill and duricrust formation have been identified and related to major sea level changes and tectonic movements in the Lake Eyre Basin.

An extensive high pediment had formed around a basement inlier by the late Eocene. An armour of pedogenic silcrete developed on this pediment under alternating dry and wet climates during the late Eocene and Oligocene. The characteristic kaolinite + opal + alunite + gypsum assemblage of the bleached profiles formed in acid saline groundwaters during the Miocene at a time of regional low water table and arid climate. Groundwater silcretes formed in the bleached profile in response to dissection of the high pediment. They are related to a period of high groundwater tables, humid climate, and gradual sinking of the Lake Eyre basin. In the meantime, widespread low pediments (glacis) formed in Lake Eyre catchment. possibly in the early Pliocene.

There is a good correspondence between a geomorphic approach, taking in to account the relationship between weathering features and palaeolandscapes, and the information provided from stratigraphic studies in the region.