Foxes Lair
  • Home
  • About
    • About Foxes Lair
    • History
    • Landscape and Soils
  • Things To Do
    • Scavenger hunt
    • Picnic Spots
    • Walking Tracks
    • Visit the Arboretum
    • Geocaching and Orienteering
    • Ride Your Bicycle
  • Things To See
    • Birds
    • Wildflowers
    • Trees in the Narrogin district
    • Narrogin spiders scorpions ticks
    • Vertebrates
    • Fungi and lichens
  • Other Places to Visit
    • FAMILY bush attractions
    • WILDLIFE bush attractions
    • WILDFLOWER bush attractions
    • all reserves
  • Foxes Lair seasonal guide
  • 1Foxypress
    • Foxypress
    • Vanishing Farms
  • Contact

Boyagin Rock a Rock of Ages

23/6/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
​Greetings fellow Foxies,
 I love climbing and understanding rocks (my wife thinks that there is mountain goat in my ancestry).
In the process of producing a Boyagin Rock brochure I climbed over and around it and compared it with our other great  tourist destination, Yilliminning Rock.
​Both are inselbergs that outcrop from underlying granite basement rock that welled up when two older slabs of continental rock crashed into each other about two thousand seven hundred million (2,700,000,000) years ago. At the time volcanos erupted and a huge alpine mountain range similar to today’s Himalayas was formed. Over great time this bit of rock joined with others to form Australia and the supercontinent Gondwana, that joined more to form the global supercontinent Pangea, that then split up (greatly simplified). Very slowly the mountain range weathered and washed away.
Another mind-blowing statistic is that Yilliminning and Boyagin rocks were once part of magma chambers 5 to 7 kilometres below the ground surface. These have been exposed over eons as the overlying material was removed.
 
In the agricultural area, features like ridges, cracks and waterways tend to follow straight lines that may suddenly change from one direction to another. Our soils and the depth to crystalline bedrock are shallower than many other parts of the world. Surface features often reflect faults, intrusions and other changes in the mainly granite basement. Lines frequently trend northwest- south east, northeast -southwest, east-west, and north-south.
 
There are distinct differences between the two rocks.
​
Yilliminning Rock is more typical as a large granite dome arising from a gently undulating landscape.

Picture
Yilliminning Rock
​The Boyagin landscape is much hillier, and the rock itself is more variable. It is one of two adjoining large rocks project from the eastern side of a lateritic upland plain.
In the early morning, variations in the texture of Boyagin Rock granite can be seen in strange shapes where there has been uneven weathering of the rock. Look closely and you can see lines and mini ‘craters’ and lumpy spots on the otherwise smooth granite. 
Picture
'Mini crater' feature
Picture
'Lumpy area'
Picture
'Line' feature
​A look on a map shows that uplands and rivers in the Brookton area commonly trend north-south up to beyond the Avon Valley.
Picture
Picture
​An explanation goes back about 95 million years when India was once attached to, but slowly separating from WA. Brookton and surrounds were part of a plain with west-flowing rivers carrying sediment into a rift valley that is now the Swan Coastal Plain (Perth – Bunbury etc.)
83 million years ago India finally separated from western WA and drifted north to crash into Asia.
With the weight of the Indian block removed, a line east of the Darling Fault from about Carnamah to the south coast bulged upwards to create the Darling Range. The land rose about 250 metres and was accompanied by other parallel downward and upward folds in the ground to its east.
These changes in slope completely blocked the old east-west flowing rivers and the blocked water ran down a new valley south from Dalwallinu (Mortlock North branch), and North from Pingelly (Avon South branch) into the Swan River.
The newly created Boyagin Creek then exposed Boyagin Rock.
​General north- south river systems and lines of ridges in the Darling Range can be seen on the before and after diagrams
Picture
Ancient rivers flowed west across a plain
Picture
Uplifted Darling Range blocked most of these rivers
​When I investigated the southwest base of Boyagin Rock I was surprised to see what looks like a quite recent north west-south east fault in the granite that had been exposed in a creek. 
Picture
Recent cracks near the base of the rock
As it turns out, generally east of Brookton is a localised earth movement hotspot in the southwest seismic zone (remember the Meckering earthquake?).
The Darling Range may also still be slowly rising so the old rocks may still be rocking. Of course the Wagyl also had a part to play.
 Click this link for a visual exploration of the rock.
Next time you climb Boyagin Rock take a good look around and be grateful for this true rock of ages.
1 Comment

BOLETE FUNGI

10/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Greetings fellow Foxies,
​Boletes are fleshy fungi with a central stalk like agarics (mushrooms toadstools) but the underside has pores instead of gills. Polypores have pores like boletes but are generally tough or leathery fungi that usually arise from wood.
Picture
An agaric. Cortinarius species
Picture
Salmon gum bolete
Picture
A polypore: Pycnoporus coccinea (Scarlet Bracket Fungus)
In early winter the giant salmon gum bolete Phlebopus marginatus pops up amongst trees down from the picnic area at the arboretum. The similar but slightly smaller Slippery Jack bolete Suillus luteus occurs next to it. This is an import that forms  mycorrhizae on the adjoining pine trees. It is apparently a delicacy in Italy, but must be peeled and cooked ( looks ghastly as a food item to me). Only once I found the beautiful Rhubarb Bolete Boletellus obscurecoccineus near the claypit.
Picture
Salmon gum bolete Australia's largest 'mushroom'
Picture
Slippery Jack
Picture
Rhubarb Bolete
PictureSalmon gum bolete goblin ring


​in good years rings of salmon gum bolete form around trees that they are associated with in the arboretum. I call them goblin rings because they are too big for fairies



​
There are still lots of boletes that remain unnamed, and many boletes change colour ('stain') when bruised or cut.The one below is a blue stainer. Yellow pores and white flesh turn blue when cut or bruised.
​First nations people used to eat these fungi.

Picture
Blue Stainer bolete intact
Picture
Underside
Picture
Cut section has stained blue
This june the large one below popped up and covered a mallee seedling I was watering at the Marri picnic area. The stem turned reddish brown and the pores rapidly turned blue when cut. I have heard of red-blue stainers, perhaps it is one.
Picture
Top
Picture
Underside note blue stain on pores reddish stain on stem
Picture
Closeup of stained pore tissue
0 Comments

    Author

    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

    Categories

    All
    Animals Other
    Birds
    Disorders Plant Animal
    Fungi Lichens
    History
    Insects Bugs Other Arthropods
    Landscapes Soils
    Other Reserves And Places
    Reptiles
    Spiders Other Arachnids
    Tree
    Walks Other Facilities
    Wasp
    Wildflowers Orchids
    Wildflowers Other Summer Autumn
    Wildflowers Other Winter Spring
    Wildflowers Parasitic

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    May 2012
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011

© 2015 All Rights Reserved. Doug Sawkins, Australia.