The Chimneys, Mt Moffatt Station / Carnarvon National Park, Queensland
This sandstone is identified as Hutton Sandstone and it is one of the intake beds for the Great Artesian Basin that is tapped across much of western Queensland and western NSW for water supply for grazing and urban communities.
Here at Mt Moffatt where it outcrops it has been sculpted and eroded by the upper catchment of the Maranoa River.
The low rainfalls, and the long periods of low humidity and high temperatures draws moisture upwards in the surface sandstone resulting in indurations (hardening of the surface rock by salts and soluble minerals). You can see this in the hard caps, as well as in the surface grey cladding of the side of these pinnacles. The heating and cooling of the surface then cracks it giving the crazed appearance. In periods of high rainfall the runoff erodes the lower slopes and intervening areas.
This area was occupied by First Nations (aboriginal) people until recently and each of the features in the landscape has story and meaning associated with it in their culture. We don't know the stories associated with The Chimneys.
The Chimneys, Mt Moffatt Station / Carnarvon National Park, Queensland
This sandstone is identified as Hutton Sandstone and it is one of the intake beds for the Great Artesian Basin that is tapped across much of western Queensland and western NSW for water supply for grazing and urban communities.
Here at Mt Moffatt where it outcrops it has been sculpted and eroded by the upper catchment of the Maranoa River.
The low rainfalls, and the long periods of low humidity and high temperatures draws moisture upwards in the surface sandstone resulting in indurations (hardening of the surface rock by salts and soluble minerals). You can see this in the hard caps, as well as in the surface grey cladding of the side of these pinnacles. The heating and cooling of the surface then cracks it giving the crazed appearance. In periods of high rainfall the runoff erodes the lower slopes and intervening areas.
This area was occupied by First Nations (aboriginal) people until recently and each of the features in the landscape has story and meaning associated with it in their culture. We don't know the stories associated with The Chimneys.