MONA
VALE
Japanest
midget submarine
- (East of Bungan Beach)
Japanese
mother submarine carrying "midget" sub, as sailed to attack Sydney.
Composite
midget submarine on display at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, comprising
portions from the
Sydney
attack submarines Ha-14 and and Ha-21. (Photo: War Memorial).
The
Type A Japanese midget submarines used in the Sydney raid were approximately 24
metres (80 feet) in length, had a crew of two, carried two 18-inch torpedoes,
had pre-charged batteries driving a 600hp electric motor, and could remain
submerged for about 12 hours. On display at the Australian War Memorial,
Canberra, is a composite craft made up of the remains of midget Ha-14
and Ha-21, while the remaining conning tower (from Ha-21) is
on display at the Naval Heritage Centre, Garden Island, Sydney. None
of the five mother submarines survived the war.
The
Sydney raid involved five large ocean going submarines, I-22, I-24, I-27 with
their three midget submarines, and I-21 and I-29 providing support. A
sixth intended submarine I-28 was sunk by the US submarine USS Tautog before it
could deploy with a fourth midget. The five remaining mother-submarines, which
had left Truk (Chuuk) Lagoon in the Pacific, arranged themselves in a
semi-circle centred on Sydney Heads. A previous flight (29 May) by a
reconnaissance aircraft launched from I-21 has spotted potential targets inside
the harbour. This Glen-type twin-float seaplane capsized when returning to
its submarine and was scuttled.
As
soon as the submarines were discovered in the Sydney Harbour the place became
alive with searchlights and sirens, shells and depth charge explosions and the
rattle of machinegun fire.
At about 8pm on the Sunday
evening, the first midget (number Ha-14 from I-27) commanded by Sub Lieutenant
Lieutenant Chuman, motored submerged into the harbour. Unfortunately for
its crew, the boat became fouled inside the still incomplete anti-submarine boom
net laid across the harbour between Georges Head and Green Point near Watson's
Bay. Observed by surface craft near the Western Gate, the two-man Japanese
crew decided to commit suicide when escape was hopeless. They fired the
forward internal scuttling charge about 10.30pm and destroyed the fore end of
the submarine. Remains of the wreck and its crew were later recovered.
Midget A (according to the Allied
order of identification) from I-24 (or M24), commanded by Sub Lieutenant Ban
with Petty Officer Ashibe, next entered the harbour and followed a Manly ferry
through the boom defences. The exact serial number of this submarine has
not been ascertained. The submarine crossed the Indicator Loop system at about
9:48 pm. In a cat-and-mouse play, the submarine manoeuvred around the
harbour and was sighted several times around 11:00 pm. Under fire from the
heavy Cruiser USS Chicago and several other vessels, the submarine successfully
fired its two torpedoes about 12.30am from near Bradleys Head. Both missed
Chicago - the prime target, one running onto Garden Island and failing to
explode. The other struck a seawall close to and under the ferry HMAS
Kuttabul after passing under the Dutch
submarine K-IX at its berth. The explosion sank the
HMAS Kuttabul, an old ferry used as a depot ship to accomodate RAN seamen,
killing 21 naval ratings.
The third midget, Ha-21 from I-22
commanded by Lieutenant Matsuo crept into the harbour and was sighted near the
Heads about 11.00pm, was depth charged, laid low for several hours, and made a
belated entry around 3:00am when Chicago was leaving port. The boat was
variously sighted in the vicinity of Bradleys Head and Taronga Zoo until
detected in Taylors Bay by 5:00 am. The midget was attacked with depth
charges from HMAS Seamist, Steady Hour and Yarroma
until 8:30 am in the morning of 1 June and fatally crippled. When
recovered with its two live torpedoes and unexploded (though fired) scuttling
charges, the crew were found dead. They too killed
themselves, as when two bodies were recovered, they had been shot in the head
with a revolver (Matsuo's service pistol).
The remains of Ha-14 and Ha-21
were recovered from the harbour within a week and subjected to military investigation.
On
the night of the attack, elated Japanese officers in the sub’s conning tower
off Sydney saw a great explosion and quickly passed news back to Japan that the
midget submariners had scored a big success on the night of May 31.
Sub-Lt.
Ban Kazuhisa (left) and petty officer Marnoru Ashibe
(right) who crewed, and died in, the midget
submarine
M-24
which attacked Sydney. Ban wrote in his
last letter before leaving Japan for
Sydney: " 'Sure-to-die' is
the
spirit that will bring about the final victory". In
Japan, Ban and Ashibe were posthumously
(on
31 May 1942) promoted two ranks to
the rank of Lieutenant Commander and
Special
Second Sub Lieutenant respectively, in recognition of their bravery
The
third midget submarine, M-24, which had escaped Sydney Habour on the night of
the attack was found off Long Reef in 2006.
It
is thought that Ban and Ashibe never left their midget sub. On escaping through
the Sydney Heads, Ban and Ashibe had turned north rather than south where their
mother sub, the I-24 was waiting.
The
I-24 went north rather than going south where their mothership the I-24 was
waiting to pick them up. It is thought that the midget submariners had
formed a pact that they would never return to the mother submarine - for
fear of exposing more than 100 men and the submarine to attack.
Photo
in the Daily Telegraph of a crater from a shell when the Japanese submarine
attack shelled Sydney
in
1942, during WWII. Simpson Street, Rose Bay. Nine areas in
Sydney were damaged by shells
fired
from the submarines. This particular shell penetrated into the earth but
failed to explode.
Perhaps
strangely, the Japanese raiders were honoured as heroes. The bodies of the
four submariners who died on the night of the attack were laid in coffins draped
with the Rising Sun and incongruously carried on the shoulders of Australian
sailors. Another naval corps followed with guns pointed down and heads
lowered in homage. The silence was broken by the salute of three
minute-guns and the Japanese corpses were then cremated to the reverberating
peal of bugles.
The
ashes were conveyed to the Japanese ambassador Tatsuo Kawai (who would soon be
expelled from Australia with other diplomatic staff, after the attack).
The
Nippon Times in Tokyo reported "Who would have thought that the brave men
of the Imperial Navy would make such a thrust at the very heart of the
enemy? The dauntless, invincible spirit of the Japanese Navy threw the
7,000,000 inhabitants of Australia into the depths of fear and despair."
But
Ambassaor Kawai’s true feelings were in a poem he privately wrote:
Deep under the water
they cannot come up;
they die there
regrettable – more good men
This clumsy surprise attack failed:
they died
fighting with the enemy;
astonishing
Bullets and blades
bloodshed and death:
now I know exactly how easy it is to die
As
Kawai left Australia, he stated "Those Australians who know how I struggled
to avert war in the Pacific will understand when I say my spirit has been
broken. The gods decreed that Japan and Australia should go to war, and it is a
case of kill or be killed, but there is no bitterness in my heart toward
Australia. When peace comes, the white man and the Asiatic must go hand in
hand with each other in the Pacific." Kawai and his staff,
together with hundreds of Japanese nationals, were returned to Japan on the
diplomatic exchange ship Kamekura Maru in August 1942. Four urns
containing the ashes of the submariners were placed on an altar on the
ship. (Kawai, who
believed it was madness for Japan to 'take on the world' found himself
ostracised when back in wartime Japan, and retreated at his little house at
Manazuru to do tangerine farming - but later returned to diplomatic service
after the war).
Later
on a A memorial Plaque for "all of the intrepid Japanese Submariners who
had made this daring but unsuccesful raid on Sydney Harbour" was erected
and unveiled on Garden Island. The Mother of Sub Lieutenant Ban journeyed from
Japan to be present at the ceremony.
So
where really is the M-24? Sydney-based
recreational SCUBA divers from a private club, No Frills Divers, located the
remains of Ban and Ashibe's M-24 midget submarine in November 2006. The
wreck was reported to be some three miles offshore from Bungan Head near Newport
in over fifty metres of water. Details of the discovery were aired on Channel
9's "Sixty Minutes" Program on 26 November 2006 (http://maritime.heritage.nsw.gov.au/public/Site_View.cfm?Site_ID=4).
This is written at the offical NSW Heritage website, which also states "The
Heritage Branch has coordination of the survey and assessment of the wreck site
and is developing management options, survey reports and interpretative
information that will be progressively added to this
site". However, another website
(http://www.1942.com.au/midget-sub-sydney.html) says something quite
different. It states that the M-24 was "was found in in
November 2006 by a group of divers off Long Reef". Long
Reef and Bungan Head are NOT close together. The www.1942.com.au
website is that for the book "1942 Australia's greatest peril, by Bob Wurth.
One
also finds that on 28 February 2005, Foxtel ran a Documentary called "M24:
The Last Sunrise", in which documentary maker Damien Lay and historian Jim
Macken revealed what they believed to be the location of the missing midget
submarine which had fired the torpedo at HMAS Kuttabul killing 19 sailors. The
documentary indicated that side scan radar plots had placed the midget submarine
near Lion Island near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney.
According
to http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/WreckofJapaneseMidgetSubm.html
the M-24 "rests on the bottom in about 70 meters of water, at Long
Reef".
The
No Frills Divers Group - The Group of 7 Divers who located and dived on the
Japanese Midget Submarine,
M-24 in November 2006, after it went missing in 1942.
Picture from New Idea Australia. Issue dated the
25th
of November 2006.
On Sunday the 12th of November
2006, at 0900 ( 9 AM ) the No Frills Divers met at Long Reef beach to revisit a
place they had noted some months earlier. Their fish finder had picked up
something sitting on the bottom some 4 months earlier, but then it was too rough
to dive that day. Off they set for the same position guided by their GPS
Navigator. This object sat at 70 m depth, meaning divers would have
a scant 12 minutes to investigate the mystery object, before needing to stop for
two stages to decompress and return to the surface. Paul said
a snagged fishing net covered the object sitting on the bottom when he reached
it, but swimming to the rear of it he found propellers sticking out above the
sand. Now the conning tower became obvious, and at the bow the torpedo tube was
found. Without any doubt this object was a midget Submarine, the interior
seemed to be full of mud and sand, but overall this find was in reasonable
condition, given it had sat on the ocean floor for some 64 years.
[By Mackenzie J Gregory, macden@melbpc.org.au
]
The same story is told at http://www.pacificwrecks.com/ships/subs/midget-sub-m24/2006/index.html
(also undated). It says a lot about the discovery and the people who
made it but doesn't exactly state where the sub lies.
And version of the same story is at http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/japsubs/midgetsubs.htm
. This states that on Sunday 12
November 2006 at about 9am, seven scuba divers met at Long Reef Beach for
another fun day of scuba diving. They decided to head for a spot they had marked
four months earlier. Their fish finder had noted something interesting on the
sea floor. The seas had been too rough that earlier day to investigate, so they
had decided to leave it to a calmer day. The object was in 70 metres of
water, so after doing all their calculations they determined that they could
only stay at the sea floor for about 12 minutes. They would require two
decompression stops on the way back to the surface. The went down to the bottom
and saw a large object covered in fishing net. They maneuvered to one end of the
object and saw propellers sticking out of the sand. They started to realise what
the object was. Paul Baggott swam back to the middle of the object and saw what
looked like a conning tower. With much excitement, he then moved towards what he
now believed to be the front of a submarine, to confirm his assumption by
looking for torpedo tubes. His assumption was confirmed! The divers were
able to peer into a window on the conning tower and saw that the inside was full
of sand and mud. This webpage gives the location of the M24 as
several kilometres off the coast and "somewhere between Long Reef and
Barrenjoey Headland".
Bob Hackett
and Sander Kingsepp at http://www.combinedfleet.com/Sydney.htm
state: "November 2006: - Seven Australian recreational scuba divers find a
midget submarine in deep water on the seabed 2 km/1.25 miles N of Long Reef,
about 20 km/ 12.5 miles N of Sydney Harbor at 33-40-21S, 151- 22-58E. The midget
submarine is sitting upright on its keel in 70 m/230 feet of water, but heavily
encrusted with barnacles and weed. On top of the hull, the divers find what
looks like 20-mm bullet holes, possibly fired by USS CHICAGO. The remains of Lt
(j.g.) Ban and PO Ashibe are probably still inside."
Yet
another version at http://www.midget.com.au/midget-articles/2008/2/17/last-hours-of-midget-sub
, written in 2008 (Sun Herald, Sunday February 17, 2008) tells a different
story. It states that a map recovered from "one of the bombed subs"
combined with Australian wartime intelligence records showed the attackers had
planned a second rendezvous spot off Broken Bay. It seems that Ban and
Ashibe were forced to stay submerged "off Bungan Head", near Newport,
and died of a lack of oxygen, or fumes. They either ran out of battery
power, or were overcome by bad air, or decided to commit suicide and end the
mission.
The most
definitive report on it is "WRECK OF THE JAPANESE TYPE ‘A’ MIDGET
SUBMARINE M24 - Preliminary Archaeological Survey Report" by Tim Smith,
2007 (Heritage Branch, NSW government). The wreck lies upright on
sand in a water depth of 54 metres, three nautical miles offshore from Newport,
Sydney, and east of Bungan Head.
Site
of the M-24, SSE of Bungan Head
The M-24 lies
slightly under half buried in surrounding sediments on a gently shelving sand
plain. The crew did not fire their internal demolition (scuttling)
charges, which would have resulted in massive destruction of the hull.
Thus the M-24 is largely intact although it has sustained damage by commercial
fishing trawling operations since its loss 65 years ago. It is
considered likely that the crew remains are retained within the hull, possibly
within the sand-filled control room. This is indicated by the presence of the
retractable crew exit ladder still stowed in its upright (unused) position.
MOOREBANK
- CHIPPING NORTON
Nuwarra
Road. This area is now rehabilitated. Formerly there was worked
here a large relatively shallow and weathered deposit with limited
potential on Ashfield Shale and possibly with overlying Cainozoic as well(?).
Boral Bricks. The 1990/91 extraction was 113,200 tonnes of mainly light
firing material, and the then remaining reserve was 1.3 Mt of light firing
material and 2.5 Mt of red firing clay. That some of the white clays
overlying the Ashfield Shale are not the result of weathering of the shale was
first suspected in about the 1970s. Various unusual clasts have been found
in these clays, including ferruginized sandstone blocks (?Minchinbury Sandstone)
of up to 0.5 m size.
Sandstone and silcrete clasts were noted at one locality by Neville (1976.
Geological Survey of NSW, GS 1976/101). Finding sandstone and silcrete
clasts in white clay is reminescent of occurrences known from much further west,
west of Cecil Park, which are there assigned to the St Marys
Formation. Other Tertiary sediments, presumably of an ancient
Georges River antecedent, is also known at Holsworthy (q.v.) where the sequence
is up to 15m thick.
MOORFIELDS
(Moorefield dyke - now Kingsgrove)
Quarry,
presumably in Hawkesbury Sandstone. Rented by Thomas West, who ran the
Fivedock Quarry, in the mid 1890s.
Moorefield
dyke
- The Moorefield dyke runs from Canterbury Golf Course at Carbethon Crescent
northeast to Cripps Avenue
(GS
1973/234). This is a major dyke 3-5m wide and what it thought to
be a continuation of it was also quarried for road metal in the late 1800s at
Hurlstone Park. According
to Greg McNally (pers. comm. 2010) this was likely worked by a line of pot hole or bell pit
extraction points until about 1920, and in about 2000 a weathered basalt dyke
was seen in excavation at Kingsgrove bus depot which could be a parallel
dyke. Along the main dyke one or another of the bell pits might subside
with surface collapse every 20 years or so, taking part of the road or a
house. In GS 1973/234 Val Smith noted that in 1973 various holes
or subsidence had appeared in the golf course and in Carbethon Crescent,
Chapel Street and Cripps Avenue. A plumb line was lowered into one
of the holes. The line was 18m long but did not reach
bottom. This then was a case of quite deep basalt mining by
shaft. Rev. J.M. Curran in 1899 reported basalt quarrying here to a
depth of 100 ft. The shafts were connected by drives and
presumably basalt might have been stoped to small degree, and or some shafts
belled out at base and the basalt taken out via drive/s to other
shafts.
MOSS
VALE
Mt
Gingengbullen quarry - (34.5°S, 150.3°E). [34.53724S,150.31912E]
Map
of Southern Portland Cement Co's railway, Berrima, and the SBM spur to
Gingenbullen mountain. The works
area
became "New Berrima". (Source:
C.C. Singleton, Australian Railways Historical Society, Bull. 1958)
[Top
image - the marker is along Oldbury Road (at Highfield Cottage) and west of the
old SBM quarry.]
View
of Mt Gingenbullen behind a construction wastes crushing plant. (Photo:
Wingecarribee Shire Council ca. 2006)
From
Mount Gingenbullen the outlook is one of rolling farmland on all sides with the
town of Moss Vale in the distance. A novel by Catherine Jinks, based
on facts about the people of the region, is entitled "Dark
Mountain". Catherine wrote that 'Gingenbullen remains a
brooding presence, though much of its timber has been removed' and that the
nearby Belanglo wilderness is still a place of dread (associated with later
serial killer). The story around Gingenbullen relates to people of
the historic Oldbury estate, which still exists ("The
story of the Atkinson family is such a tremendously Gothic and melodramatic one
that I couldn't believe it wasn't well known. The more I read about it,
the more I felt that it needed publicising" .... Catherine Jinks).
In this historic novel the mountain is described thus:
"
... Oldbury could, perhaps, have been better situated. It was so very crammed up
against the foot of Gingenbullen that one felt perpetually encroached upon –
since Gingenbullen, though hardly more than a hill (and a flat-topped hill, at
that) still possessed a powerfully solid presence. It was impossible to ignore.
Cloaked in dark, dull foliage, and crowned with certain moulds or tumuli left by
ancient native tribes, it was altogether too close for
comfort". Where Jinks got the idea (or information?)
about there being tumuli atop it is not know for certain, but may have been from
a drawing entitled "Aboriginal grave mound with carved funeral trees"
by Louisa Atkinson in the Sydney Illustrated News of 26 November 1854, p.
59", and which has been believed to have been on Gingenbullen
mountain. In to Jink's "Dark Mountain" this is also
referred to, fictionalised on, at pages 209-210.
The first Europeans through here were in a party lead
by ex-convict John Wilson in 1798. John Price, who kept records of what
they saw, recorded that it was "most beautiful country, having nothing but
fine large meadows with ponds of water in them, fine green hills but very thin
of trees". They climbed the mountain later called Gingenbullen and
according to Price "had a most delightful prospect of the country and in my
opinion one of the finest in the world". In 1828, James Atkinson of
the Oldbury estate recommended where the layout of the Sutton Forest village
should be. In the 1840s a white woman living there married a local
Aborigine, which was a very unusual marriage in the early colony.
The quarry at Mt Gingenbullen may be quite old.
Hoskins appears to have owned it when developing the cement works at Berrima in 1927.
It was the "Southern Blue Metal Quarries Ltd." which established a blue metal quarry at Mt Gingenbullen and built a branch line to there from off the Southern Portland
Co.'s railway line, but
SBM was likely a Hoskins company. It's managing director was Arnold
Stanley Taylor, who was also the Managing Director of both Southern Portland
Cement Co. Ltd and its Medway Colliery. In 1926 when SBM was
acquiring Mt Gingenbullen (as Lot 31 of the Oldbury Estate subdivision) it
issued a prospectus which described the top of the mountain as a bare area of
about 60 acres with absolutely no overburden, the tops of large basalt pillars
showing at the surface. The company purchased an area of 154
acres.
The (Melbourne) Argus of 5 November 1928 when describing the then still ongoing construction of Berrima cement works referred to the employment of men on the "allied works" of the Southern Blue Metal Quarries Ltd.
The initial quarry ceased operating in 1942. Later on the Melocco Brothers
were quarrying on Mount Gingenbullen. Currently Mr and Mrs Vanderschaar live
at a house built in the old quarry, off Oldbury.
The
quartz dolerite capping Mt Gingenbullen is a sill, first dated by K/Ar at about
180 Ma. Both
the Gibraltar Microsyenite and the Gingenbullen Dolerite near Moss Vale, were emplaced during the second of three major
phases of igneous activity that affected the southern Sydney Basin and they are
K/Ar dated at 178 Ma and 172 Ma respectively. The Gingenbullen
Dolerite records two opposed components of magnetization, above 100 °C.
The lower blocking temperature component (between 150 and 400 °C) and is
of normal polarity and is believed to be related to the initial opening of
the Tasman Sea at about ninety million years ago. The higher blocking
temperature component ( 450-580 °C) is of reverse polarity. There is
no evidence of this reversal in the Gibraltar Microsyenite, showing that this
intrustion had solidified and cooled before the reversal took place.
(REF: D. N. Thomas
, D.N., A. J. Biggin,
A.J. and P. W. Schmidt,
P.W., 2002. A palaeomagnetic study of Jurassic intrusives from
southern New South Wales: further evidence for a pre-Cenozoic dipole low.
Geophysical Journal International, vol. 140, issue 3, pp. 621 - 635).
MOUNT
WHITE
Flagging
stone quarry in Hawkesbury Sandstone.
MOUNTS
BANKS, TOMAH, WILSON, IRVINE AND TOOTIE (basalt flow remnants)
The
Turkish Bath Museum
was a Turkish bathhouse built by Mr Richard Wynne
promoting Mt Wilson as a
health
resort in the 1870s. It today it houses a museum of local history operated
by the Mt Wilson
and
Mt Irvine Historical Society.
Mt Hay, Mt Tomah, Mt Wilson, Mt Irvine, Mt
Tootie and Mt Banks (Mt King George) are basalt capped peaks rising above the
general Blue Mountains Plateau level. The basalt is about 80m
thick at Mt Tomah.
Mount Bankss, Tomah, Bell, Wilson, Irvine, Hay,
Tootie and residual areas at Haystock ridge, Edgeworth David Head and Mount
Cayley are considered to be all that remains of the basalt lava flows that
covered a large area of the Blue Mountains plateau. The vents from where the
lava originated have not been identified. The basalt is considered to
have formed 14-18 million years ago.
The more fertile soil supports quite a
different community of plants than the sandstone.
Mount
Tomah is convenient to visit. The Mount Tomah Botanic Garden, close
besides the Bells Line of Road, shows abundant examples of basalt columns
(used in wall construction) and some patches of outcropping basalt. The other similar basalt remants, at Mount Wilson and Mount Irvine
can be seen from Mount Tomah. A further remnant is Mount Tootie (east of
Mt Irvine). Whereas Mt Tomah is convenient to visit off the Bells Line of
Road, to visit Mts Wilson and Irvine, another road must be used which traverses
further north, running subparallel to the Bells Line and departing that west of
Mt. Tomah.
Road
cuttings showing the basalt lower contact at Mount Tomah are on the national
register, and have have described by the RTA (http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=heritage.show&id=4310578).
Some points noted by the RTA (Percival 2005) are:
Listing - Register of
the National Estate, Reference Number 3003
|
Name of Item
|
Mount Tomah Road Cuttings
|
|
Item Number
|
4310578
|
|
Address
|
Bells Line of Road,
southern side, Mount Tomah, nr. Bilpin
|
|
|
Physical description
|
Three major cuttings occur in the
specified road section, the upper (eastern) two of which expose
porphyritic olivine basalt, which overlies Triassic sediments exposed in
the western-most cutting. Columnar jointing is seen in longitudinal
section in weathered basalt in the upper cutting and in oblique
transverse section in relatively fresh basalt in the middle cutting.
(Source: Register of the National Estate)
|
|
Statement of significance
|
The cuttings feature basalt with
conspicuous columnar jointing overlaying Triassic sediments. The
columnar jointing is among the best exposed, most accessible example of
this phenomenon available close to Sydney. It is therefore frequently
visited or viewed by students on geological excursions, and was
inspected by visiting scientists on several of the field trips conducted
during the International Geological Congress in 1976. (Source: Register
of the National Estate). The site is assessed as having high local
significance. |
These
topographic highs of basalt flow remnants, like Mount Wilson, have long been
renowned for a wonderful and special cool environment with luxurious
vegetation. Mt Wilson is about 2 hours drive from Sydney and has long been
a popular
tourist point. It has rainforest walks and grand exotic gardens which are
well worth visiting - as well as the museum shown above.
An
early convict explorer, Matthew Everingham, may have seen the area in 1795, but
the first European known to have definitely visited there was William Romaine
Govett in 1833. He produced a plan showing the (unnamed)
Wolllangambe
River
and Bowen’s Creek, and between them a ridge marked “High mass of the range
of the richest soil covered with the most impenetrable scrub” (Mt Wilson).
By
1880 development at Mt Wilson included eight properties intended in the English
manner of hill station
retreats
from the summer heat of lower altitudes. The above is early
PO (Historical Society).
Les
Dollin with a hexagonal pillar of basalt at Mt Tomah (Photo: Anne
Dollin)
Columnar
basalt pillars are extensively used for walls at Mt Tomah Botanical Garden.
No stream sediments appear to be well known or described from
under any of these basalts, the basalts being directly over Triassic sandstone
wherever easily
observable. Mapping of the base of the
basalt on Mount Tomah has revealed a westward flowing channel with a smaller
northern tributary on the pre-basalt surface. Relief on this surface
reachs over 50m, however no Tertiary sediments or soil profiles have been
recognized (New South Wales Geological Survey. Quarterly Notes 57, October
1984). Nonetheless, certain
notes by Carne (1908. NSW Geological Survey, Memoir
6) and others do suggest there should be Tertiary sediments to be found below the
Mount Irvine and Mount Tootie basalt remants. The main road at Mount Wilson has
places for observing the
base of the basalt, which can also be seen there at the Upper Falls, Mount Wilson.
Mount Tomah is mainly visited for its fine gardens but outcrops of columnar basalt may
also be seen and there is also a small quarry in columnar basalt. Larger
basalt quarrying proposals for these Blue Mountains basalt flow remnants were
considered in the past, but not proceeded with.
Van der
Beek et al. (2001) noted that these Miocene basalts were erupted in a relatively short time span (20.1–14.5
Ma) and that sub-basalt relief was remarkably gentle. It does not exceed 100 m for any single basalt cap and is of the order of 200 m for the entire region.
By comparing the reconstructed mid-Miocene and present-day topographies, they estimated plateau lowering and river incision rates at <14 and =40 m/m.yr, respectively.
They explained the dramatic post-Miocene increase in regional relief by migration of major knickpoints up the river gorges, with retreat rates estimated at 800–1200 m/m.yr.
Extrapolation of the estimated retreat rates suggested that knickpoints were initiated
along the Lapstone Monocline at between 48 and 71 Ma ago.
REF:
Van der Beek, P.A., Pulford, A., and Braun, J., 2001. Cenozoic Landscape Development in the Blue Mountains (SE Australia): Lithological and Tectonic Controls on rifted Margin Morphology. Journal of Geology. Vol. 109, pp. 35-56.
Tesselate
Hill -
33°
27' 21" S 150° 28' 22" E. There's an interesting hill name, Tesselate Hill, in
the national park area 4 km NNE of Mt
Irvine, no doubt named after the tesselated sandstone presence there (Map LPI
Wollongambe 8931 2S). It is at plateau top above the Wollamgambe River.
Some information on it herein is from Peter Medbury who has visited and
photographed there (see Peter's website Dingo Gap Galley - http://www.dingogap.net.au
It
is not yet known who first observed/named this site, however Peter Medbury found
that there is a reference to the 'Tesselate Pavements' on the 1908 Bowen Parish
Map, so it was possibly come upon by an early lands surveyor(?).
The Geographical Names Board Web Site identifies the Parish
and then one can look up the Parish Map at Lands to view this (navigation is a bit
difficult but it works); follow these links:
The Geographical Names Board link: http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/name_search
The Parish Maps Online link: http://parishmaps.lands.nsw.gov.au/pmap.html
(At the latter, enter "Bowen" as the 'Parish Name' to have a look).
With
a bit of searching, an area of polygonal jointed pavement was located on
9/9/2007
by
bushwalkers Tom Brennan, Rachel and Steve Thomson. (Photo:
Tom - trip report http://ozultimate/tom/bushwalking/2007/20070909_tesselated_pavements/index.htm
)
Then
on 21/12/2007 bushwalkers Peter Medbury and Geoff Fox also reached Tesselate
Hill (they also logged going via the remains of "an old iron ore
quarry" with some equipment judged to be "very old" which bears
looking into):
Tesselate
Hill possible fire scar water hole with axe-grinding groves and a small
hole
with water. (Photos: Peter Medbury)
REFERENCES:
Peter
Medbury, Peter - website:
http://www.dingogap.net.au/navigation/scenery/wollemi/tesselatehill.html
(this is main page re the tesselated pavements)
http://www.dingogap.net.au/navigation/aboriginal/axegrinding/attesselatehill.html
(axe grinding grooves at Tesselate Hill)
Percival,
Daniel, 2005. Heritage Assessment of Mount Tomah Road Cuttings for S170
Register. Environmental Technology, RTA
Pickett,
J., 1987. Geology. In: The Mt Tomah Book. The Mt Tomah Society and The
Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney.
MULBRING
The
small Mulbring quarry. (Photo: Kauffy)
Mulbring
quarry is in the dotted square, 1.5 km NW of Mulbring village.
Mulbring
quarry - This site is very well known to, and often visited by, fossil
collectors. It is located 1.5 km NW of the village, reached via an access
track which turned off the Cessnock-Mulbring road at 1.5 km north of the bridge
over Wallis Creek. The quarry is within the 30-60m thick Fenestella
Shale member of the Branxton Formation. The fossils in the shale include
many marine species of brachiopods, pelecypods (e.g. large Mylonia),
bryozoans, solitary corals, crinoid stems and occasional crowns, blastoids,
gastropods and rare trilobites.
Stevenson
(1981, pp. 95) gives the references for the palaeontology done from this
site. Stevenson recorded that the owner of the quarry, Mr Ashman of
Congewai Street, Cessnock, was amenable to geological visitation and fossil
collection so long as prior permission is obtained. The quarry has been operated intermittently for sourcing
road use material by Greater Cessnock City Council. Expected blasting by
the Council should be capable of exposing fresh fossiliferous rock, although
later work there might have switched mostly to bulldozing. Mostly
the fossils are only impressions in the lithified mud, their shelly substance
having been totally dissolved away.
Visitors
to the quarry, or persons interested in it, have probably been many been -
e.g. at least three parties visited there in 2006:
2006,
April - Amateur Geology Society of the Hunter Valley. http://agshv.com
2006,
July - "I ran into a couple from Maitland at today's fossil dig at Mulbring.
The woman's name was Lynne and she is a geologist who's been a longstanding
Fossil Club member. She said that she couldn't log onto our website."
[cf. Fossil Club of N.S.W. Inc.]
2006,
August - Third class excursion to Mulbring. Edgecliff Preparatory
School. (Sydney Grammar)
2008,
June - Sydney Grammar school. "Our initial travels will take us to
the fossil fields of Mulbring, only 1½ hours drive north from Sydney, where
trilobite, brachiopod and bryozoa remains have been found. Fossil finds may be
added to your collections at home. After lunch we will explore the remains
of a Cenozoic volcano at Kulnurra, starting deep within the magma chamber and
working our way up through extensive basalt deposits and associated lava flows.
Minerals displaying an impressive array of colours and lustres can be
discovered, however patience is required. Mallets and hammers will be
supplied" Science master, Dr Malcolm Binns, mrb@sydgram.nsw.edu.au
Gary
Holloway. Primary school teacher. Oakville Public School 135
Oakville Rd Oakville 2765 NSW Australia email: d2794pn1@ozemail.com.au
("I have commenced some basic palaeontology / geology work with the kids
here at my school .... I would find it VERY difficult to really enthuse the kids
WITHOUT a small collection of real fossils. Those that we have are of the
abundant variety [from Mulbring quarry mostly ..]" - Sep 1997).
Unusually
fine find in the rock at the Mulbring quarry (Photo: Kauffy)
2008,
March - Year 12 Earth & Environmental Science students visit, St.
Francis Xavier's College,
Hamilton, NSW: "The students were on the hunt for invertebrate
fossils, evidence of life just before the massive end-Permian extinction known
as the time when the earth nearly died." (Aileen Hanson and Alex
Lojzzczyk, Earth & Enviironmental Teachers).
Bow
Wow gorge - Although it's a fair distance west from Mulbring village to the
Bow Wow Gorge, that locality is nonetheless often linked to Mulbring. For
example, although the below photo has been catalogued in the historical
photographic collection held as "Cultural Collections" series by the
University of Newcastle as "Students with Mulbring fossils, Newcastle,
Australia - 7 Aug 1980" the fossils seen in it are mostly like Thamnopora and
would have been collected from somewhere other than the well known Mulbring
quarry site (and maybe at Bow Wow gorge?).
1980,
August - Newcastle students with "Mulbring fossils" - but doubtful if
from the well known Mulbring
"Fenestella
shale" quarry (perhaps from Bow Wow gorge area). (Photo:
University of Newcastle collection)
The
thick walled branching tabulate coral of the Permian (Upper Marine) strata has
variously been recorded as either
Trachypora,
Pachypora or less often Thamnopora. These genera are
similar as noted above by Wells (1944).
(Source:
Wells, J.W., 1944. New tabulate corals from the Pennsylvanian of Texas.
Journal
of Paleontology, Vol. 18, No. 3 (May, 1944), pp. 259-262.)
Bow Wow Gorge is listed on the
Register of the National Estate (registered 1987) due to its scientific
significance. It is the type locality for five or six Permian species.
Also, according to its heritage listing, "its galleries are spectacular
with their congested masses of marine fossils and stalactites". ( http://www.aussieheritage.com.au/listings/nsw/Mulbring/BowWowCreekGorge/3055
)
Despite the fact that the Bow Wow
Gorge is a nationally significant site listed for conservation largely because
of geological features, when council prepared a 47 page plan for the area (DCP
2006 - E8) geology was not assessed at all, and the plan contains no
geological items in the list of references.
The gorge is 50m-70m deep for a
distance of 1.6km, with reaches of nearly vertical walls, with the floor
carrying dense rainforest type vegetation. About 500m from the mouth of
the gorge, and for about 30m vertically, the northern wall is eroded into
several hundred metres of interesting deep caverns.
An article describing Bow Wow and a
visit there is in the Greta and Branxton Gazette of Saturday 31 May 1890.
Some extracts: "With the Scientific at Bow Wow: On Saturday
morning last a number of members of the Maitland Scientific Society ... met at
the Post Office, West Maitland .. and proceeded to West Maitland, where they
were joined by Mr. David, Geological Surveyor, Mr. Dunn, a gentleman in the same
department, and the Rev. J. Lamont. The party were well equipped with bags
for carrying trophies ...". For three hours they journeyed on.
Mr. David was full of information. And it was a wonderful tale he had to
tell. How that long, long ages ago immense forests, that never dreamt or
axe or saw mill, existed all the way from Richmond River down to Illawarra.
They existed for ages. Their weight gradually pressed them down, to below
sealevel. They became the bottom of the ocean. Shellfish mulitplied
and died, and left their shells; fishes swam above, who died and the lime of
their bodies sank to the bottom. The immense forest is now the Greta Coal
Seam, 450 feet deep at Maitland, 4000 feet deep at Newcastle and 8000 feet under
Sydney. All this David told the party as they went along (who took notes
and sent to the newspaper is not recorded). He told how the temperature of
the earth increases one degree every 50 feet and the interior of the earth
therefore must be a molten mass. Volcanic action at Lochinvar had risen
through the Greta Seam, breaking it in two and thus revealing its existence.
By and bye (sic) the road got bad and the party alighted to proceed on foot and
ease the horses. The notes of the bell bird were heard. A carpet
snake 7 feet 9 inches long was met with sunning itself on the road. The
snake was hit on the head and put into spirits to add to the collections of the
Maitland Scientific Society. Eventually the party left the road and struck
off through the bush along a creek dense with ferns and lichens, tall trees,
decaying wood covered with moss, and immense vines. A pause was made to
boil the kettle and make tea. Already here fossil shells were being found
in sandstone by members of the party. It is what the geologists call the
'Upper Marine Bed' [the article mentions spirifer, productus, encrinite
plates and coral]..... A little 'Geeko' lizard hiding under one of the stones
was also captured. A much harder stone which was an erratic and had very
much older shells (?Devonian quartzite) was also discovered and it was mused if
that had been carried there by a 'glazier' (sic) and iceberg. But time
flew. Before starting for home, Mr Butterworth conveyed to Mr. David the
thanks of the Society for the manner in which he had led the excursion, and
called for three cheers which were most lustily given. Mr David, in
responding, said what he had done had been a service of great pleasure.
Three and a half hours later the gas lights of East Maitland were discerned
through the tall trees." (The Maitland Scientific Society
referred to is perhaps the same as the Maitland Scientific and Historical
Research Society which is mentioned by D.F. Branagan in "Words, Actions,
People: 150 Years of Scientific Societies in Australia. Journal and
proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 104, pts. 3-4, pp.
123-141. 1973.) [Thanks to Mr John Goswell for
bringing this article to notice.].
REFERENCES:
Greta
and Branxton Gazette, 1890. "With the Scientific at Bow
Wow". Saturday, 31 May 1890.
Stevenson,
B., 1981. The geological heritage of New South Wales. Volume II.
202 pp. GS1981/590. (Cooperative study: Geological
Society of Australia, Australian Heritage Commission, NSW Department of
Environment and Planning.
MULGOA
(See
also Wallacia; e.g. Nortons Basin volcanic neck spans Mulgoa-Wallacia)
The
Mulgoa quarries - Three
clay-shale and sandstone quarries within a limited area that is north of Chain
of Ponds Creek and west of Bringelly Road. Entrance road to largest quarry
(DP 537922) is just east of "Mulgoa Place" house on Chain of Ponds
Road. The entrance road for the other two quarries, which are near
Sovereign Hill, is the road to "Blue Hills" house off the western side
of Bringelly Road. Area part owned by Mulgoa Quarries and part acquired by
Department of Housing and others. Area envisaged for new urban
development, partially subject to Badgerry Creek airport development
proposal. Mulgoa Quarries in 1990/91 extracted 137,463 tonnes of
shale. By 1991 one of the small quarries near Sovereign Hill, in Lot
1 (DP 541090), had a large remaining reserve of 13 Mt but the largest quarry
holding had in places been worked to the boundaries and had limited remaining
reserves. A visit to the main quarry in the 1980s found good exposures at
its northern end of the lower part of the Bringelly Shale. The base of the
Bringelly Shale is noted at various places (to as far east as the
Homebush-Rookwood-Strathfield area) for having the most carbonaceous sediments
known within the Wianamatta Group and which Chris Herbert (a principal authority
on the Wianamatta Group) interpreted as coastal marsh facies. Typical
highly carbonaceous claystone units of this facies may show carbonaceous
colouring of continous matted plant remains on almost every parting surface,
have many millimetre-sized brittle crumbly lenticules of coal, and occasional
bands of massive black claystone. The former Wearn Industries quarry near
Mulgoa also exposed one distinct and continuous thin seam of bituminous
rank coal. Although reaching only of 10 cm maximum thickness, and locally
thinning to less than 3 cm, this coal was very noteworthy as good quality finely
banded vitrain. Also present are some paler claystone bands which may be
palaeosols. Cross bedding in the basal Bringelly Shale in this area was
initially thought to be westerly directed and perhaps indicative of onshore wave
action prior to the formation passing up into the domination of fluvial plain
facies (since glauconite pellets had long been known to occur in the base of the
formation), however more extensive examination of quarry exposures in the area
later on did not much encourage the retention of this idea. The facies
pattern glimpsed in the Mulgoa quarries is probably complex; the extent to which
it was recorded, uncertain.
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