We're back with Anita and Roger Palmer of GISetc and Gary Lewis of the Geological Society of America for part 2 of their trip leading 19 educators and students in an investigation of Australia's singular geography and geology.
Our group could not imagine enjoying anything more than the time we spent in the Sydney Basin, but forge on we did!
After breakfast with the koalas at Sydney Wildlife World, we flew to the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia. We landed in Cairns (pronounced "Cans"), a beach town that is the launching off point for many adventures.
Our group could not imagine enjoying anything more than the time we spent in the Sydney Basin, but forge on we did!
Koala habitat in Sydney Wildlife World
After breakfast with the koalas at Sydney Wildlife World, we flew to the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia. We landed in Cairns (pronounced "Cans"), a beach town that is the launching off point for many adventures.
Pictures of Cairns looking toward the mountains and the ocean
We were reminded of the enormity of Australia as we traveled to
areas that were quite different from the typical picture of the "arid
red continent." The arid latitudes are the controlling feature of the
vast majority of the continent, yet the northern part of Australia
extending from 18° south to 10° south is quite tropical.
These lower-latitude lands (located farthest north on the continent) offer a striking contrast to the rest of the continent in that they are lushly covered in vegetation and have an abundant supply of biologically diverse animals and deeply entwined communities of life. A tropical rainforest dominates the landscape, and, along the shoreline, hybrid biomes can also be found, such as mangrove swamps and grassland estuaries of equal robustness. To help us understand the diversity, we visited the Daintree National Park, much of which is covered by the Daintree Rainforest, and toured the canopy. With the richness of life around us, it was surprising to learn how poor rainforest soils actually are. Rainforest soils require an intense recycling of nutrients from decaying biomass to enable the richness of life to thrive. Our guide reminded us that if the trees are removed or the land cleared, the sophisticated web of life that hangs from these branches would collapse, requiring a complex and long-term chain of events to restore the area.
The mythical-looking cassowary is one of the birds that lives in the
national park, and is indeed becoming one of the casualties of habitat
loss and other factors in the Daintree Rainforest. There may be as few
as 1500 cassowaries left in the world to date, so, try as we might, we
never caught site of this wonderful creature in the wild. Of
course, there is a tremendous movement to protect the cassowaries and
all indigenous species in the Daintree National Park.
Cassowary at Sydney Wildlife World
The ocean has a similar story of poor nutrient support at the base of the food chain and efficient recycling of nutrients. To illustrate this, our group spent the day diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. All who were on the boat appreciated the crystal-clear waters for swimming, but we were surprised to discover that those very waters are poor sources of nutrients for most plants and animals along the reef. The reef community demands that any nutrients stored in animals and plants be recycled efficiently and completely up the food chain. The clear waters carry very little to feed plants and animals, so animals like the coral must host plants such as algae within their structures. The algae, in exchange for feeding the coral, are protected from most predators that crawl or swim across the reef. So, the two amazingly diverse systems on land and in the ocean--rainforests and coral reefs--are actually quite similar.
Roger [Palmer] snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef
We finished the day over dinner in the park alongside the shore, talking about how processes on the coral reef we had just swum over made our earlier visit to the Jenolan Caves (Installment 1) possible. The inland sea that encouraged coral deposits that became the Jenolan Caves disappeared when the eastern side of Australia was uplifted. These deposits were eventually exposed and eroded slowly to form the fantastic formations we experienced during our trip to the Sydney Basin. Perhaps some day in the distant future, the wildly colorful variety of life forms sheltered by the dozens of corals may themselves be uplifted and exposed to erosion's power of artistry! This will be just one more spectacular feature in an ancient continent.
Stay tuned for the final installment of our travels to the Outback and our take aways from Earth Science Down Under.
Lush foliage with vines and lianas in the rainforest of Daintree National Park
These lower-latitude lands (located farthest north on the continent) offer a striking contrast to the rest of the continent in that they are lushly covered in vegetation and have an abundant supply of biologically diverse animals and deeply entwined communities of life. A tropical rainforest dominates the landscape, and, along the shoreline, hybrid biomes can also be found, such as mangrove swamps and grassland estuaries of equal robustness. To help us understand the diversity, we visited the Daintree National Park, much of which is covered by the Daintree Rainforest, and toured the canopy. With the richness of life around us, it was surprising to learn how poor rainforest soils actually are. Rainforest soils require an intense recycling of nutrients from decaying biomass to enable the richness of life to thrive. Our guide reminded us that if the trees are removed or the land cleared, the sophisticated web of life that hangs from these branches would collapse, requiring a complex and long-term chain of events to restore the area.
Cattle ranching and sugar cane shoots in the areas on the way to Daintree National Park from Cairns
The mythical-looking cassowary is one of the birds that lives in the
national park, and is indeed becoming one of the casualties of habitat
loss and other factors in the Daintree Rainforest. There may be as few
as 1500 cassowaries left in the world to date, so, try as we might, we
never caught site of this wonderful creature in the wild. Of
course, there is a tremendous movement to protect the cassowaries and
all indigenous species in the Daintree National Park.Cassowary at Sydney Wildlife World
The ocean has a similar story of poor nutrient support at the base of the food chain and efficient recycling of nutrients. To illustrate this, our group spent the day diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. All who were on the boat appreciated the crystal-clear waters for swimming, but we were surprised to discover that those very waters are poor sources of nutrients for most plants and animals along the reef. The reef community demands that any nutrients stored in animals and plants be recycled efficiently and completely up the food chain. The clear waters carry very little to feed plants and animals, so animals like the coral must host plants such as algae within their structures. The algae, in exchange for feeding the coral, are protected from most predators that crawl or swim across the reef. So, the two amazingly diverse systems on land and in the ocean--rainforests and coral reefs--are actually quite similar.
Roger [Palmer] snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef
We finished the day over dinner in the park alongside the shore, talking about how processes on the coral reef we had just swum over made our earlier visit to the Jenolan Caves (Installment 1) possible. The inland sea that encouraged coral deposits that became the Jenolan Caves disappeared when the eastern side of Australia was uplifted. These deposits were eventually exposed and eroded slowly to form the fantastic formations we experienced during our trip to the Sydney Basin. Perhaps some day in the distant future, the wildly colorful variety of life forms sheltered by the dozens of corals may themselves be uplifted and exposed to erosion's power of artistry! This will be just one more spectacular feature in an ancient continent.
Stay tuned for the final installment of our travels to the Outback and our take aways from Earth Science Down Under.
Thanks Anita and Roger for such a comprehensive remembrance of our experiences together in the field. What a great gift it was to share in this educational quest to explore Australia. Our journey to blend global understanding with environmental literacy, community exchange, and personal and collective perspective is indeed the quest we seek in professional development, no matter the subject matter or location! I cannot think of anything more impacting can you? May we recognize the importance of global education for our teachers and students in the future of education, within policy, mandates, and resource development to find the much needed support to make experiences such as this even more accessible to our students and teachers.
Sandy Doss
Holbrook