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Geologically induced salinity at Yelarbon, Border Rivers area, New South Wales, Queensland

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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A dryland salinity scald some 48 km2 is described from Yelarbon on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, near the headwaters of the Murray-Darling River Basin. The saline soils, including solodised solonetz, are severely eroded and readily identified on Landsat MSS imagery. A major fault (Peel Fault offset?) beneath the scald has caused saline groundwater to leak up into the soil zone preferentially at this location. The evidence for this includes regional tectonic setting, detailed site geology, a magnetic geophysical anomaly, surface drainage changes and land surface displacement, hydraulic gradient changes, and groundwater hydrochemical anomalies. Erosion of the geologically caused saline scald is being aggravated by overgrazing. An appropriate land management strategy is to fence the area and assign it nature reserve or national park status.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Geologically induced salinity at Yelarbon, Border Rivers area, New South Wales, Queensland
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/38dcb863-7ef9-4ade-8529-04d6f1fbec0b
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        147.3,
        -30.82
      ],
      [
        153.89,
        -30.82
      ],
      [
        153.89,
        -25.67
      ],
      [
        147.3,
        -25.67
      ],
      [
        147.3,
        -30.82
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Geologically induced salinity at Yelarbon, Border Rivers area, New South Wales, Queensland". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/geologically-induced-salinity-at-yelarbon-border-rivers-area-new-south-wales-queensland