Contrasted perceptions of Uluru

Abstract

Uluru is an inselberg shaped in arkosic sandstone located in the arid plains of central Australia. The indigenous people believed it rose out of a sand hill and has since remained unchanged. The various minor landforms represented mythological animals, people, and events of the Dreamtime. Later investigators interpreted the residual as remaining after long-distance scarp retreat, or as due to scouring by the wind or by the waters of a huge lake. The inselberg and its decorations have been construed in terms of climatic variations. Uluru also has been interpreted as a compressed and resistant compartment that was exposed as a low rise in the latest Mesozoic. The initial rise shed runoff. The steep flanks were shaped in the Eocene by deep subsurface weathering followed by stripping of the regolith and exposure of bedrock forms. Large tafoni and breaks of slope were formed on the southern side where permeable sediments abutted the residual. Following their exposure, basal flares and footcaves were shaped during a later period of subsurface weathering. The inselberg has grown as a relief feature not by uplift, but by the lowering of the surrounding plains. The morphology of Uluru is an expression of episodic exposure.