Geomorphology of the Barmah-Millewa Forest

Abstract

The Barmah-Millewa forest has excited the curiosity of two generations of earth scientists. This triangle of forest has developed on a low-angle alluvial fan formed by an an anabranching network of channels. The Barmah-Millewa forest exists because of the limited hydraulic capacity of the present channel of the Murray River. The result is that flood flows leave the Murray and spread through the forest via a complex network of effluents. The extent and position of those effluents is, in turn, controlled by the fan of palaeo-levees associated with late Quaternary channels of larger size, and coarser sediment load. The morphology of the Rarmah-Millewa fan is thus indirectly a product of the ris..