Deserts And Drylands Codexery

Nullarbor Plain

World's largest limestone plain, arid and historically significant.

The Nullarbor Plain is a vast, flat, almost treeless arid region on the southern coast of Australia, spanning about 200,000 km² across South Australia and Western Australia.[1][2] Its name comes from Latin meaning "no tree"[1] Covering roughly 200,000 km², the Nullarbor Plain is the globe's most extensive exposed limestone bedrock formation.[2]

Last updated 2026-10-07 from the source article.

Quick Facts

Biome
deserts and xeric shrublands
Country
Australia
Conservation
Relatively stable/intact

Facts from the source article.

Geography and history

Dutch explorers François Thijssen and Pieter Nuyts charted the coast in 1626–1627, and the area later bore Nuyts's name on maps.[3] Edmund Delisser first named both "Nullarbor" and "Eucla" in his journal in August 1865.[4] The Eyre Highway, connecting Norseman to Port Augusta, was carved in 1941 and fully sealed by 1976.[5] In 2013, the Nullarbor Wilderness Protection Area was proclaimed in South Australia, covering almost 200 km of the plain.[6]

The Nullarbor Plain was once a shallow seafloor; its limestone consists of calcareous remains from bryozoans, foraminifera, echinoids, and red algae, and it is a well-known karst area featuring caves from the Oligocene and Miocene epochs.[7] Eyre, together with the Aboriginal man Wylie, reached Albany in June 1841, finishing their crossing.[8]

What the cited sources add

A 2006 paper by John A. Webb and Julia M. James describes the Nullarbor Limestone as early middle Miocene in age, with five distinct formations including the Mullamullang member and the Abrakurrie Limestone.[9][10] The 1981 film Road Games, directed by Richard Franklin and starring Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis, features the Nullarbor and has been called one of the best Hitchcock films Hitchcock never made.[11][12] According to Webb and James, the plain experienced uplift during the Miocene and has probably never had significant topographic features, which explains its remarkable flatness.[13] Dinerstein et al. (2017) determined that protected areas cover 62,317 km² of the ecoregion, which is 32% of its total area.[14][15]

Richards (2012) documents cave-adapted crustaceans, spiders, and beetles, along with the southern hairy-nosed wombat and a distinct subspecies of the Australian masked owl.[16][17]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Macquarie Dictionary", Macquarie University, 1991, p. 1220 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Across the Nullarbor Plain", Kevin's Wilderness Journeys, 7 June 2004 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Taking it to the edge: Coast: The Dutch", SLSA, 6 April 2006; Sevastos, "Voyages of Grand Discovery", museum.wa.gov.au; "The Freycinet map of 1811 – The first complete map of Australia? – Australia on the Map"; "Terrestrial CAPAD 2022 WA summary", www.dcceew.gov.au/; "Australian Protected Areas Dashboard", www.dcceew.gov.au/ (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Journal of the Great Australian Bight Expedition, May–October 1865, recording the exploration and naming of the Nullarbor Plain. The journal covers the dates 1 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Road links to the East", State Library of Western Australia (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: ABC News, 25 March 2011 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John A. Webb & Julia M. James, "Perspectives on Karst Geomorphology, Hydrology and Geochemistry – a Tribute Volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White", Geological Society of America Special Paper 404, 2006, p. 65–78; Lipar, M., Ferk, M., (2015). Karst pocket valleys and their implications on Pliocene-Quaternary hydrology and climate: examples from the Nullarbor Plain, southe; John A. Webb & Julia M. James, "Perspectives on Karst Geomorphology, Hydrology and Geochemistry – a Tribute Volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White", Geolo en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "EYRE CENTENARY.", Western Mail, 20 March 1941, p. 43 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John A. Webb & Julia M. James, "Perspectives on Karst Geomorphology, Hydrology and Geochemistry – a Tribute Volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White", Geological Society of America Special Paper 404, 2006, p. 65–78; John A. Webb & Julia M. James, "Perspectives on Karst Geomorphology, Hydrology and Geochemistry – a Tribute Volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White", Geological Society of America Special Paper 404, 2006, p. 65–78 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  10. John A. Webb, "Karst evolution of the Nullarbor Plain, Australia", Geological Society of America eBooks (2006), doi:10.1130/2006.2404(07). OpenAlex metadata CC0; paper not read. doi.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Buckmaster, "Road Games: rewatching classic Australian films", The Guardian, 2014-05-23 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Buckmaster, "Road Games: rewatching classic Australian films", The Guardian, 2014-05-23. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
  13. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: John A. Webb & Julia M. James, "Perspectives on Karst Geomorphology, Hydrology and Geochemistry – a Tribute Volume to Derek C. Ford and William B. White", Geological Society of America Special Paper 404, 2006, p. 65–78 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  14. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pa (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  15. Eric Dinerstein, "An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm", BioScience (2017), doi:10.1093/biosci/bix014. OpenAlex metadata CC0; paper not read. doi.org
  16. Wikipedia, "Nullarbor Plain" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richards, "A natural history of Australian bats : working the night shift", CSIRO Pub, 2012, p. 18 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  17. Open Library record, ISBN 9780643103740 ("A Natural History of Australian Bats"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Nullarbor Plain (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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