Management of Sediment in New South Wales, Australia
ABSTRACT The amount of sediment in major New South Wales rivers and reservoirs is relatively low compared to world averages. This is a result of relatively low erosion rates, the sediment coarseness and numerous sediment sinks between the erodingparts of catchments and the rivers and reservoirs. However, in some locations several problems have required attention. These include: sediment blockage of roads and culverts; sedimentation of small reservoirs and recreational lakes; sedimentation on large alluvial fans; river channel damage casued by low sediment supply; and lack of effective government control over soil erosion and sedimentation in the past. Strategies to overcome these problems start with information collection to pinpoint major problems. This enables the preparation of total catchment management plans. These require proper land-use policies, legislation and education of the public for effective implementation.
Denudational history of the south‐central uplands of New South Wales
Summary K‐Ar age determinations on Tertiary basalts provide the basis of a new chronology for part of the south‐central uplands of N.S.W. A master planation surface which truncates a very diverse lithology was formed before Tertiary times, probably during the Triassic. There is evidence neither of the early Tertiary nor mid‐Tertiary planations which figured so prominently in many accounts of the N.S.W. uplands. By the beginning of Miocene times the Lachlan and Wollondilly Rivers had cut to within 80 metres of their present beds. Basalts in headwater valleys show that this part of the Great Divide was well‐established by Eocene times. The sequence of events in this region is strikingly similar to that proposed for the southern part of the Sydney Basin.
Chapter 6 Rift Basins of the Sudan
Abstract The Sudanese rift structures form intracontinental basins, bordered on all sides by anorogenic terrain. These basins are seen as the result of a multistructural system of rifts which appear to have been activated several times since the Palaeozoic. Improved methods of dating and extensive geophysical surveys have led to a better understanding of the mobile belts and the Basement rocks in the general environs of the basins, and of the elevated blocks and highs surrounding the sedimentary basins. Detailed mapping and extensive drilling in the sedimentary basins led to a better understanding of the Phanerozoic. The rapid rate of uplift and subsidence have assisted in the rapid accumulation and filling of the basins with unconsolidated sediments, ranging from a few hundred metres to some thousand metres. The rift structures contain sediments of several age groups, origin and mode of deposition. Some of them are as old as the Palaeozoic passing through to Mesozoic, Tertiary and Quaternary (Bahr El Arab rift and Blue Nile rift). The thickness of the Tertiary sediments exceeds 15 km in Bahr El Arab rift. Palaeozoic sediments were found to occupy NE-SW grabens. Jurassic? and Cretaceous sediments were deposited in NW-SE troughs. Tertiary sediments filled grabens that range in thicknesses up to 15 km. Highly saline ground-water bodies which coincide with hydrogeologically closed basins occupy the flowing end of each of the rift basins. These saline bodies have been interpreted as buried saline lakes, sabkhas or playas. Alternating wet and dry periods eventually filled up the basins with intercalating layers of fresh and saline layers. The filling up of the basins led to the interconnection of the hydrological regime and the development of the integrated River Nile. Rift structures in Sudan form the major ground-water basins, outside these basins ground water is found only in small quantities and is of poor quality. The rift basins also act as reservoirs for hydrocarbon accumulation; all the known oil fields of inland Sudan are located in these basins.