Has the Centre of Australia Always Been Red Wasteland?

Hey Veeky Forums, Im not sure if this is the best board to ask this, but I wanted to know; has Australia always had such a massive desert in the centre of it?

Given that Australia is so close to Indonesia and the pacific Islands which have such a lush rainforest, shouldn't the Centre of Australia similarly consist of rainforest or at least not be a giant fucking red desert?

Also when I look at all the other countries on the same Latitude they have rainforests; like South America. Even South Africa - which is a lot more arid and is one roughly the same latitude has grassy plains and veldts not just a desolate red barren wasteland.

So, did it used to consist of jungle? or at least was it a lot more green and if so, did Humans fuck it up?

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Australia isn't as mountainous as South America. Mountains do some magic shit with rain clouds can't remember what but that's why they get more rain than Australia.

maybe you should ask Veeky Forums.

i think it has to do with mountains and rain shadows or whatever

Note the lack of massive rivers like the Nile, Kongo, or Amazon

noice ill give that a shot

So could australia conceivably be terraformed to make the centre much more hospitable? Would a massive replanting program combined with digging artificial river systems make the centre liveable?

The center use to be sea.

shouldnt the water have created green zones on its banks, which centuries of being green caused the soil to be much more fertile?

Sounds like a waste of time, Australia is full up already.

Salt water + sand = not necessarily

I dunno, would be a e s t h e t i c to create a new state and capital city in the centre of the country.

fugg that sucks, giant continent but only a fraction is liveable.

where are they going to get the water from?

Pretty sure it'd be easier to build a pipe line or ditch connecting the ocean to lowland areas.

Pic is if the ice caps melted. Similar effect could probably be done by man.

Connect the rivers to the oceans, and make the rivers relatively shallow so it doesnt require too much water

hmmm interdasting, shame these days you cant really do Mega-Projects with parliamentary democracies.

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hmmm interdasting, shame these days you cant really do Mega-Projects with parliamentary democracies.

Australia isn't one big piece of rock. It is made up of a few different rock formations. For example, Pilabara in Western Australia has a bacterial eco system that has been dated as old as 3.5 billion yrs.

Australia from a geological perspective is very interesting

Sydney is built upon a sandstone rock formation that is appx 10 million yrs old

Like stated, Australia is composed of many old strata from ancient cratons dating back to the Archean.

This has a lot of implications for Australia's develop. Paleosols - what geologists call the broken down sediment of millions or billions of year old rock - make for shitty agriculture. Almost no phosphorous or nitrogen.

In general, the older the sediment, the less fertile the soil. This is due to successive generations of plant and invertebrate life, aeolian processes (wind and erosion) etc stripping away every last nutrient the soil has until it forms a hard, infertile crust almost like rock in itself. Large parts of Australia were heavily rainforested in the Eocene, and from what we know of the Amazonian rainforest, this tends to strip the soil of nutrients over extended time. The jungle canopy grows too dense to allow for rainwater to replenish nitrogen or minerals. Most rainforest species are evergreens and don't allow for green material to drop to the forest floor and replenish the soil like in temperate climes. What does gets scavenged by animals almost as soon as it falls.

Imagine that over twenty million years in Australia before Earth's climate changed in the Oligocene and killed off the rainforests in the majority of the continent (though larger parts of it were forested then over now).

That's not very old in geological terms

>I dunno, would be a e s t h e t i c to create a new state and capital city in the centre of the country.

but australia is already full. no room for more cities.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain

But I'm not sure it'd work for an area the size of Australia.

It would still be salty as fuck out there.

Increasing rainfall wouldn't do fuck all, Australia draws most of its water for farming from aquifers.

Building an artificial lake in Australia would only be useful for soil fertility if it was freshwater and continuously replenished for decades so humus can build up on the lake bed over time. Otherwise the soil is too salinated to be of any use.

>Increasing rainfall wouldn't do fuck all, Australia draws most of its water for farming from aquifers

So you're saying it would do some good?

If you enjoy vast degradation from Australia's shit-tier soil.

Yeah, that is my point. Parts of Aus is old as, others are still infant

Thank you for articulating my thoughts about rocks

>Eromanga sea
The plot thickens.