Photos

This piece of abstract art is an outcrop of rock next to the Finke River near Glen Helen, in the western Macdonnell Ranges of central Australia. The field of view is about one metre. The rock is dolomite, a type of limestone, and the patterns shown here are probably fossil remains of algae colonies, although I am not sure of this. This outcrop is part of the Goyder Formation, which is about 500 million years old.

You will often read in the tourist literature that the Finke River is the oldest river in the world, a statement that is impossible to prove, and never backed up with any evidence. It is one of the few reliable sources of water in this part of the world.

Scanned from a slide.