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A truly surreal experience – Wave Rock in Western Australia is a natural rock formation shaped like a “wave“ frozen in time

David Goran

Wave Rock is a natural rock formation that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave. The “wave” is about 14 m (46 ft) high and around 110 m (360 ft) long. It forms the north side of a solitary hill, which is known as “Hyden Rock”. This hill, which is a granite inselberg, lies about 3 km (2 mi) east of the small town of Hyden and 296 km (184 mi) east-southeast of Perth, Western Australia. Wave Rock and Hyden Rock are part of a 160 ha (395-acre) nature reserve, Hyden Wildlife Park.

This 110-metre long multi-coloured granite cliff is shaped remarkably like a huge wave. source
This 110-metre long multi-coloured granite cliff is shaped remarkably like a huge wave. source

 

It stands 15m high, 100m long and looks like a tall wave just about to break. source
It stands 15m high, 100m long and looks like a tall wave just about to break. source

A wall lies above Wave Rock and about halfway up Hyden Rock and follows the contours of the wall. It collects and funnels rainwater to a storage dam. The wall and dam were constructed in December 1928, by the Public Works Department for the original settlers of East Karlgarin District. Both were renovated in 1951 to increase water capacity for the Hyden Township. Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.

Runoff water running down the face of the wave has marked the face with vertical streaks of various colours derived from the minerals of the rock. source
Runoff water running down the face of the wave has marked the face with vertical streaks of various colours derived from the minerals of the rock. source

More than 140,000 tourists visit Wave Rock every year. source

Hyden Rock, of which Wave Rock is part, consists of 2.63 billion-year-old biotite K-feldspar porphyritic monzogranite that is part of the Yilgarn Craton. Hyden Rock is a granite inselberg, which consists of three domes. The central and western domes are separated by a deep valley, which is now occupied by a reservoir. The central and eastern domes are linked by a low platform. A multistage process of landform development created these domes. The initial step in the development of Hyden Rock was the subsurface alteration by weathering of granite bedrock beneath a lateritised land surface during the Cretaceous Period between 100–130 million years ago.

It is a granite outcrop of the Yilgarn Craton, the oldest of the cratons that formed the original Australian continent. source
It is a granite outcrop of the Yilgarn Craton, the oldest of the cratons that formed the original Australian continent. source

Depending on the degree to which it was fractured by jointing, the granite bedrock underlying this surface was altered to varying depths beneath the land surface. This process formed underground “domes” of solid granite bedrock surrounded by deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated granite. Following the separation of Australia and Antarctica and the accompanying tilting of what became southwestern Australia, periodic erosion of the deeply weathered granite, which underlaid the surrounding land surface, exposed these buried solid bedrock domes over time as Hyden Rock.

View from the top. source
View from the top. source

Wave Rock is a spectacular example of what geomorphologists call a “flared slope”. A flared slope is a concave-upward or -inward bedrock surface that is typically found around the base of inselbergs, bornhardts, and granitic boulders and also on their higher slopes. Flared slopes like Wave Rock are particularly well developed in granitic landforms of south-western and southern Australia.

The rock was originally buried by soil, and as the soil level was lowered by erosion the top of the granite was exposed. source
The rock was originally buried by soil, and as the soil level was lowered by erosion the top of the granite was exposed. source

The flared slopes are argued to have formed by the concentrated chemical weathering around the base of an inselberg by groundwater. The chemical weathering of the bedrock by groundwater produces a concave-upward or – inward pocket of deeply weathered, relatively loose, and disaggregated bedrock within the formerly solid bedrock base of an inselberg.

It is not the only formation of its type in Australia, but it is the biggest and most spectacular. source
It is not the only formation of its type in Australia, but it is the biggest and most spectacular. source

When the land surface, which is underlain by deeply weathered bedrock, around an inselberg is lowered by erosion, the pocket of deeply weathered disaggregated bedrock is also removed to produce a flared slope such as Wave Rock. It has also been argued that flared slopes can form during erosion of slopes of inselbergs.

David Goran

David Goran is one of the authors writing for The Vintage News