"They look like some kind of river channel, but they start and end so abruptly that it triggered us to investigate them," Matej Lipar, a researcher at the Anton Melik Geographical Institute in Slovenia and first author of the study, told Live Science.
Despite their large size, the trenches aren't always easy to spot. "You don't really notice them when you are on the Nullarboor because they are really flat," Lipar said.
An aerial view of one of the trenches on the Nullarbor Plain. (Image credit: Matej Lipar)
To investigate the mysterious trenches' origin, Lipar and his colleagues ran exaggerated digital models of the terrain to make the trenches easier to see and identify where the team needed to focus. Then, they used an imaging technique called electrical resistivity tomography — which measures how electrical currents flow through the ground — to distinguish rock from sediment.
When the team looked at a database of known caves, they found that some big, deep caves were lined up along the trenches. The accessible ones can often be reached via sinkholes — also known as dolines — and contain massive passages that can stretch for hundreds of metres. Their similar orientation to the trenches suggests the caves were formed in the porous, karst limestone area by groundwater flowing toward the coast during the Oligocene (33.9 million to 23 million years ago) and Early Miocene (23 million to 16 million years ago), Lipar said.
"What this also tells you is that when the trenches end, we might still have a cave that hasn't collapsed yet," Lipar said, and that might help us locate big caves that have never been seen by human eyes before.
The researchers explored one of the caves beneath the plain. (Image credit: Matej Lipar)
"The authors skillfully show that the linear depressions along the margin of the Nullarbor Plain are probably the surface expression of the progressive collapse of ancient underground cavities," Andrea Zerboni, an Earth scientist at the University of Milan who wasn't involved in the study, told Live Science.
Maximilian Dröllner, a geoscientist at the University of Göttingen in Germany who wasn't involved in the study, told Live Science that the work "could help identify similar caves elsewhere and may be particularly valuable for the study of caves and potentially habitable environments on other planetary bodies."
Related storiesSimilar features have been seen in other deserts, including parts of the Arabian Peninsula, where networks of collapsed caves can be recognized at the surface as elongated depressions, Zerboni noted.
This insight might help scientists pinpoint good places to look for signs of extraterrestrial life. "Subsurface cavities are among the most promising environments in which past life — or traces of it — might have been protected from radiation, extreme temperatures and surface weathering," Zerboni said.
Hence then, the article about giant caves beneath sinkhole reveal origin of mystery trenches that score australia s nullarbor plain was published today ( ) and is available on Live Science ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Giant caves beneath sinkhole reveal origin of mystery trenches that score Australia's Nullarbor Plain )
Also on site :
- HDFC Bank Limited Sued for Securities Law Violations - Contact the DJS Law Group to Discuss Your Rights - HDB
- Quote of the Day: Cleanthes Worked Night Shifts as a Water Carrier to Study Philosophy by Day. Then He Took Over Ancient Greece’s Leading Stoic School
- Anne Hathaway Will Campaign This Awards Season in an Unexpected Category, 13 Years After Her Oscar Win