Has the Centre of Australia Always Been Red Wasteland?

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 /sci/.

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

>>2413178
Note the lack of massive rivers like the Nile, Kongo, or Amazon

>>2413193
noice ill give that a shot

>>2413193
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?

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>>2413178
The center use to be sea.

>>2413205
shouldnt the water have created green zones on its banks, which centuries of being green caused the soil to be much more fertile?

>>2413204
Sounds like a waste of time, Australia is full up already.

>>2413209

Salt water + sand = not necessarily

>>2413216
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.

>>2413220
fugg that sucks, giant continent but only a fraction is liveable.

>>2413204
where are they going to get the water from?

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>>2413226
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.

>>2413238
Connect the rivers to the oceans, and make the rivers relatively shallow so it doesnt require too much water

>>2413238
hmmm interdasting, shame these days you cant really do Mega-Projects with parliamentary democracies.

>>2413244
>>>2413238

*
>>2413244
hmmm interdasting, shame these days you cant really do Mega-Projects with parliamentary democracies.

>>2413178
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

>>2413703
Sydney is built upon a sandstone rock formation that is appx 10 million yrs old

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Like >>2413703 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).

>>2413706
That's not very old in geological terms

>>2413226
>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.

>>2413204
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Mountain

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

>>2413244
It would still be salty as fuck out there.

>>2413815
>>2413204
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.

>>2413862
>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?

>>2413906
If you enjoy vast degradation from Australia's shit-tier soil.

>>2413758
Yeah, that is my point. Parts of Aus is old as, others are still infant

>>2413751
Thank you for articulating my thoughts about rocks

>>2413205
>Eromanga sea
The plot thickens.