Geography of Western Australia - Introduction

Introduction

Western Australia's geology has components that are considered some of the oldest and most recent. The oldest minerals of the world have been discovered at the Jack Hills, and the Yilgarn Craton of the Great Western Plateau, which occupies most of the state, has been above sea level for over 2.5 billion years, giving it some of the oldest soils of the planet. Equally, culturally, Charles Doortch has identified Aboriginal stone tools, found at Rottnest, as dating possibly to 70,000 years, making them amongst the first evidence of modern homo sapiens found outside Africa.

The European settlement of Western Australia started in 1827, at Albany, but the state was only established as an administrative colony in 1829, and much of the state was only subsequently developed, with the extent of the pastoral industries from the 1860s and with the mineral industries from the 1890s to the present day. Western Australia has the highest proportion of non-state born population of any of the Australian states, and this coupled with the fact that over 76% of the population live in Perth means that the proportion of the population who have a deep understanding of the geography of their state is limited.

The geography of Western Australia has been of interest ever since the 17th century when the state was first visited by Dutch East India Company (VOC) explorers, traveling the shorter "roaring forties" route from Cape Town to Batavia (Jakarta) in what was then the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Lacking the ability to accurately measure longitude, it was easy to overestimate the distance required to be traveled with the consequence that arrival upon the western shores of Western Australia became a more frequent occurrence.

Dutch explorers too often suffered from collision with the many reefs along the western coast, a result of the warm Leeuwin current, that baths the western shores, and has a huge effect upon creating the favourable Mediterranean climate of the south west corner of the state. Abel Janzoon Tasman, for instance, was sent from Batavia to scout the size of the new continent discovered. By the mid 18th century, the whole of the Western shoreline of the state had been mapped to a reasonable degree of accuracy, although these maps were improved subsequently by the British explorers George Vancouver, Phillip Parker King and Matthew Flinders.