November 16, 2016

A brief call of nature recently led an Aboriginal man to discover a site preserving some of the oldest known evidence of human settlement in Australia. Clifford Coulthard, an Adnyamathanha elder, stumbled across a rock shelter during a brief bathroom break while surveying in the northern Flinders Range with archaeologist Giles Hamm of La Trobe University in Melbourne. The Adnyamathanha are the Aboriginal people of Australia native to the Flinders Range of South Australia. Subsequent excavations at the rock shelter, called Warratyi, unearthed ancient tools, bones, and other artifacts that are dated to about 49,000 years ago–only about 1,000 years after the first humans arrived in Australia.

The Warratyi rock shelter lies in the desert landscape of South Australia’s Flinders Range. Credit: © Giles Hamm, La Trobe University

Warratyi sits above a desert landscape crossed with deep gorges about 340 miles (550 kilometers) north of Adelaide. In prehistoric times, the rock shelter offered protection from the wind, heat, and cold, as well as a commanding view of the once-stream-filled landscape below. Archaeologists excavated some 4,300 stone artifacts and hundreds of animal bones, emu egg shells, and other materials from layers deep within the site. They estimate that people occupied Warratyi on and off for about 40,000 years, finally abandoning the site about 10,000 years ago when conditions became impossibly dry.

One sharpened bone tool from Warratyi, called a uni point, was used to hunt big game. Archaeologists also excavated bones from a Diprotodon—a prehistoric giant wombat that was the largest marsupial that ever lived. Many archaeologists believe these animals and other Australian megafauna (giant animals) became extinct because of hunting by early humans. Some tools bore tiny bits of feathers as well as red ocher and white gypsum, two common minerals that were used as pigments (coloring materials) by Aboriginal people. Archaeologists believe the tools were decorated and perhaps used for ceremonial purposes.

Archaeologists know that the ancestors of today’s Aboriginal people arrived in Australia at least 50,000 years ago. Scientists believe that these first people came by boat from Southeast Asia, the closest land that was inhabited by human beings at that time. Archaeologists have long thought that the first people to arrive likely lived along the forested and well-watered coast where resources were abundant. Archaeologists believed the dry southern interior of Australia was too inhospitable for these early people. They thought the people of 50,000 years ago could not have survived in regions such as the Flinders Range because they did not yet have the technology to survive the challenging environment. The Warratyi rock shelter, however, proves that Australia’s earliest humans were capable explorers who could quickly adapt even to the harsh conditions of the continent’s arid interior.

December 31, 2015

This week, thousands of visitors flocked to the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden in Crafers, South Australia (near Adelaide), to experience a rare, unpleasant phenomenon. For 10 years, the garden has been growing a titan arum—a large, flowering plant known for producing a vile odor that has been likened to that of rotting fish. Because of this stench, which attracts insects to pollinate the plant’s flowers, the titan arum is sometimes called a carrion flower or corpse flower. The 6.5-foot (2-meter) plant, named Indah, began opening for the first time on Monday.

The titan arum has the largest inflorescence (cluster of blossoms) of any flower in the world. The inflorescence can reach more than 10 feet (3 meters) tall. The plant gives off the odor of rotting fish to attract insects. These insects carry the plant’s pollen. This photograph shows a titan arum in bloom at Kew Gardens at the Royal Botanical Gardens in London. The titan arum is native to Sumatra. AP Photo

The titan arum is native to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It grows from a bulblike underground stem that can weigh more than 200 pounds (90 kilograms). After many years of growth, the plant is ready to flower. At that time, it grows a single large spike enclosed in a structure known as a spathe. Eventually, the spathe unfolds and opens, forming a purple-red skirt around the base of the plant. A large stalk called the spadix rises from the open spathe. Pink to red female flowers ring the bottom of the spadix. Yellowish-white male flowers grow just above the female flowers.

The spike usually remains open for only a few days. During this time, the plant produces its legendary odor to attract pollinating insects that normally feed on rotting flesh and animal waste. After the plant blooms, the spadix collapses and the spathe falls off. The plant then restarts its cycle, lying dormant for years before blooming again.

Many botanic gardens around the world grow titan arum plants. Visitors flock to the gardens to see and smell the plants when they bloom. In July of this year, a specimen named Tiny drew visitors to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden in Cambridge, England. In September, thousands of people flocked to the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois, to experience the sights and smells of a titan arum named Alice.

Other World Book articles: 

• Arum
• Skunk cabbage
• Botany (1931) – A Back in Time article

July 8, 2014

Three previously unknown volcanoes have been found in a region of South Australia known as the Newer Volcanics Province (NVP), researchers from Monash University in Australia reported in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences. The youngest of the three, Cas Maar, is almost 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide and is around 300,000 years old. The other two volcanoes are Jays Hill, which is around 2 million years old, and Burgers Hill, which is about 4 million years old.

Mount Gambier in South Australia (at the lower right, near the border with Victoria) is one of around 400 volcanoes in the Newer Volcanics Province. (World Book map).

The NVP is home to approximately 400 somewhat unusual volcanoes. Nearly all volcanoes form along the edges of tectonic plates. Occasionally, however, volcanoes appear above locations called hot spots that can be far from plate boundaries. The NVP volcanoes are of the hot-spot variety. Another hot spot under the Pacific Ocean created a chain of volcanoes that became the Hawaiian Islands.

Cas Maar is an especially unusual type of volcano; it formed when magma heated groundwater, instantly evaporating the water. Such events cause an explosive eruption of steam, ash, and, sometimes, rock, and are known as phreatic eruptions.The other two newly discovered volcanoes are shield volcanoes. The last eruptions at this site occurred around 5,000 years ago, but the area is still considered active.

Additional World Book article:

• Igneous rock
• Lava
• The Biggest Eruptions on Earth (a Special Report)
• Volcano