Highest Mountains in Australia

Geography

The mountain was formed by geologic uplift. It was not formed by any recent volcanic activity. Eroded granite intrusions remain at the summit as large boulders above the more heavily eroded sedimentary rocks.

History

Many Aboriginal people have a remarkably rich history of Aboriginal use in the Victorian Alps and a vast knowledge of the cultural sites, oral history and ancestral stories that relate to the alpine region of Victoria. Throughout the many seasons each year, Aboriginal groups would come from as far away as the coast and south west slopes, to meet with the tribes of the mountains for intertribal ceremonies and feasting on bogong moths. During these festivities they would exchange cultural objects and materials for tools.

the Yiatmathong (people) controlled the Kiewa and Mitta Mitta valleys, they also had control of the Alpine region on the Victorian side. Their southernmost boundary extended to Hotham and ran along the highest ridge line of the Alps in an east-west direction.

Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification scheme, Mount Buller has a very cold Oceanic / Subpolar oceanic climate (Cfb / Cfc) under the −3 °C (27 °F) isotherm, or a Humid continental / Subarctic climate (Dfb / Dfc) under the 0 °C (32 °F) isotherm, with cool summers and cold, very snowy winters. On average, Mount Buller receives 67.6 snowy days annually, the greatest figure for any mainland Australian site.

Due to its far south-western location in the alpine region, Mount Buller is more susceptible to cold airmasses which allow it to record some of the lowest maximum temperatures and daytime readings in the country, despite being considerably lower in elevation than other mountain sites to the north-east.

History

The first European to scale the mountain was Christie Palmerston in 1886. He blazed a tree at the summit "'P' October 26,'86.". Its immediate neighbour Mount Bellenden Ker is the second highest mountain in Queensland at 1593 metres.

On 21 April 1942 an American Air Corps B-25 Mitchell medium-range bomber (41-12455), from the 3rd Bomb Group, 90th Bomb Squadron, crashed on the mountain with the loss of all seven crew members. This particular aircraft had only recently returned from the Royce Mission against Japanese forces in the Philippines.

History

It is believed that Mount Zeil was named during or following Ernest Giles's 1872 expedition, probably after Count Karl von Waldburg-Zeil (1841–1890), who had recently distinguished himself with geographic explorations in Spitzbergen; a footnote in Giles' published journal implies that the naming was instigated by his benefactor, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller.

Geography

The summit of Mount Meharry can be reached from the Great Northern Highway via an unsealed road 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) in length and a vehicular track 21 kilometres (13 mi) in length. Permission should be sought from the managers of the land over which the road and track pass. These are Juna Downs Station and the Department of Parks and Wildlife, which manages Karijini National Park. In dry conditions, a two-wheel-drive vehicle can reach the national park boundary at about 800 metres (2,600 ft) elevation, requiring a walk of about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the summit, including an ascent of about 450 metres (1,480 ft).

History

Mount Meharry is named after William Thomas Meharry (1912–1967), Chief Geodetic Surveyor for Western Australia from 1959 to 1967. Surveyor Trevor Markey and his party were the first people of European descent to discover the mountain, in 1967. Tom Meharry directed the survey party and performed the calculations that confirmed the mountain was the highest peak in Western Australia, being 15 metres (49 ft) higher than Mount Bruce which lies 62 kilometres (39 mi) northwest of Mount Meharry. Bluff Knoll, highest peak in the Stirling Range and sometimes mistaken as the state's highest, is 150 metres (490 ft) lower than Mount Meharry.

Geology

The mountain as well as the rest of the Stirling Range were formed as Australia broke away from Antarctica. When both the continents began to separate a rift gradually opened. In the first stage of rifting, it began to open in the west, then later the eastern section began to open. The two continents pivoted slightly at a point in the west, which squeezed the sediments at the western end of the break against the Yilgarn block, which forced the sediments up to form the range. The sedimentary rocks that were folded up are 1.2 billion years old. The rocks on the range are mostly sedimentary such as sandstone, quartzite, slate and shale.

Aboriginal history

It's a place of different moods, lots of eyes looking...In the old days, old people went around that place. It holds the totemic spirit of our people.

The mountain is often shrouded in a mist which curls around the peaks and floats into the gullies. Signage at the Bluff Knoll carpark states that a mist-like spirit named Noatch (meaning 'dead body' or 'corpse' in the Noongar language) resides there.

Boola Miyel is the place of many faces. If you look into the rock face you will see all of the eyes of the many faces looking out at you. Boola Miyel is the place where the spirit Noyintj lives, this is the spirit of the dead...When any Noongar person dies down in Koreng country, their spirit always comes back to Boola Miyel before it passes onto the great beyond.

Climate

While there are no weather stations on Bluff Knoll, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's gridded climate dataset extrapolates the highest average elevation, coldest 0.025° × 0.025° area of the Stirling Ranges (the 6.5 square kilometres (2.5 mi2) from 34.35° to 34.375° S and 118.25° to 118.275° E; just excluding the summit but at a higher average elevation than its pixel) as having, averaged over its extent, a temperate or warm-summer mediterranean climate (Csb) according to the Köppen and Bureau of Meteorology classification systems.

Geography

Mount Bates is situated in the northwest quadrant of Norfolk Island, which spans approximately 35 km2 (14 sq mi) in the Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand. The elevation reaches 319 m (1,047 ft) with an equal prominence, confirming its status as the island’s highest peak. The peak is situated within the Norfolk Island National Park, a protected area established to preserve the remnant subtropical rainforest, the island's original vegetation and endemic flora. The tip of the mountain is located at a much higher altitude from the seabed than the height of Mount Everest, with the bulk of mountain submerged under the sea.

The mountain is composed of volcanic basalt rocks. The Norfolk Island rose out of volcanic activity that happened at the base of Mount Pitt and Mount Bates.