
Cliff OllierUniversity of Western Australia | UWA · Earth and Environment
Cliff Ollier
D.Sc.
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (71)
Contents of the book: The Hidden History of Earth Expansion
Available in both Hardback and Paperback editions. An eBook edition is available on Google Books: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Hidden_History_of_Earth_Expansion/kzUmEAAAQBAJ
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is part of the great ocean “conveyor belt” that circulates heat around the globe. Since the early 2000s, ocean sensors have started to monitor the AMOC, but the measurements are still far from accurate and the time window does not permit the separation of short term variability from a longer te...
The paper by Peterson and Li (Environ Earth Sci, doi:10.1007/s12665-014-3498-9, 2014) assumes sea level rise induced by global warming is real, and sea levels may rise by 2100 m, and they go on to derive ecological conclusions from this. We show here that sea levels are rising slowly, both worldwide and in North Carolina, based on real tide gauge d...
The Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) satellite provides the first measured CO2 flux data that can be used to determine if a region is sequestering or emitting CO2. Results differ considerably from the popular accepted view. In the specific case of Australia, the observational data show this country is a top sequestering and not a top em...
The global mean sea level (GMSL) changes derived from modelling do not match actual measurements of sea level and should not be trusted. Compilations of individual tide gauges of sufficient quality and length provide much more reliable information. The present work is a contribution towards a better understanding of the observed of sea levels in In...
The threat of dangerous climate change from anthropogenic global warming has decreased. Global temperature rose from 1975 to 1998, but since then has levelled off. Sea level is now rising at about 1.5mm per year based on tide gauges, and satellite data suggests it may even be falling. Coral islands once allegedly threatened by drowning have actuall...
Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with results from elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible. The Darwin theory of coral formation, and subsidence ideas for guyots would suggest that we should see m...
Some huge landslides have occurred in deeply weathered rock, but most geologists and engineers do not appreciate the great depths that weathering can attain. Rocks can be weathered to depths of hundreds of metres, often in a very irregular manner. Fresh rock is converted to weathered rock called saprolite by isometric chemical alteration. Some sapr...
The “seven-coloured earth” of Chamarel is a geological curiosity and a major tourist attraction of Mauritius. This is a small (∼7500 m2) area of strikingly bare landscape showing well-developed rills and various shades of red, brown, grey, and purple. Curiously, it is located within a large, dense forest. Prevalent misconceptions are that the lands...
An outstanding collection of international case studies that provide insight into and suggest best practice for issues such as conservation, risk management, education, marketing, interpretation and technology of actual and developing geotourism sites.
Selected recent findings related to climate change in Hong Kong include:
(1) The Hong Kong seafloor has yielded a ~0.5-million year record of
climate and sea-level changes. (2) Greenhouse gases produced naturally
from sub-aerially exposed continental shelves were a probable forcing
mechanism in triggering the termination of past ice ages. (3) An
an...
In the Deccan region of western India ferricrete duricrusts, usually described as laterites, cap some basalt summits east
of the Western Ghats escarpment, basalts of the low-lying Konkan Plain to its west, as well as some sizeable isolated basalt
plateaus rising from the Plain. The duricrusts are iron-cemented saprolite with vermiform hollows, but...
The thickest development of Carboniferous Limestone in Great Britain (about 1200 m) is in the Pembroke Peninsula of SW Wales. In various places, the regularity of the normally well-stratified limestone is broken by zones of disturbance, which are spectacularly displayed in magnificent near-vertical cliff sections. The zones generally occupy the who...
Planation surfaces are an old-fashioned topic in geomorphology, but they are nevertheless important where they make up much of the landscape. Northern Ethiopia is largely a stepped topography, caused by differential erosion. Exhumation of old planation surfaces that were preserved under sedimentary or volcanic cover is an important process in lands...
Landscape evolution is on the same time-scale as global tectonics, biological evolution, and major climatic change. Some features of global change reflected in landscape evolution result from the breakup of Pangaea. Others relate to major climatic changes, and yet others to a major change from a dominantly plains landscape of the Mesozoic to an inc...
Six years after the special issues No. 2 and 3 (2001) of our Journal were devoted to « volcanic geomorphology »,and two years after the Supplement Band 140 of Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie, this new volume focuses once again on the geomorphology of volcanoes. This special issue contains six of the twelve contributions that were presented during th...
Studies in weathering and slope movements—an introduction Weathering can be studied in its own right, but often it is an important component in investigations in other fields. This special issue of Geomorphology contains eight of the 16 contributions presented during the session on "Slope movements in weathered materials: recognition, analysis and...
Evidence from geomorphology and mineralogy is presented which indicates that many tropical soils in Uganda are formed on pre-weathered rock. The first cycle of weathering took place before the formation of the African surface, probably in Mid-Tertiary times or earlier. Further weathering and pedological change is taking place in the present cycle.A...
The islands of northeast Fiji studied are all the emergent parts of the northern end of the Lau–Colville Ridge, a remnant island arc which has been rising for most of the Quaternary. Within the study area, investigations of coastal landforms (primarily emerged notches and shore platforms) and emerged coral reefs allow rates of tectonic movements to...
Landscape evolution of Australia is on the same time scale as global tectonics
and biological evolution. In places, actual landforms and deep weathering
products are hundreds of millions of years old. Much of Australia has a
landscape resulting from stripping of weathered rock after an earlier period
of very deep weathering. Other regions have sequ...
After a review of previous ideas on the morphogenesis of southern Norway, a description of relief features is presented and a comparison with the suite of landforms occurring at the passive continental margin of eastern Australia is performed. Major landscape features such as high plateaux, a great escarpment, and a coastal plain are similar in the...
Analysis of radial, centripetal and gutter drainage in the volcanic region of northern Viti Levu, Fiji, enabled the delineation of several distinct volcanoes, despite the early Pliocene age and considerable later erosion. Three main shields with calderas and several smaller volcanoes are mapped. The results are consistent with some other geological...
In Early Miocene times the Cordillera did not exist and the Pacific Ocean reached the Oriente. In the Middle Miocene, the uplift of an elongated swell, consisting of Palaeozoic and older rocks, created the Eastern Cordillera. Decollements were activated diverging away from the Eastern Cordillera. In the eastern trench, located approximately in corr...
This paper is part of the special publication No.162, Uplift, erosion and stability : perspectives on long-term landscape development. (eds: B.J. Smith, W.B. Whalley and P.A. Warke). A traverse of Ecuador crosses five planated units including two main horsts which constitute the Andean Cordillera. A single surface once extended across all units, an...
Aims to integrate the different views of geomorphologists, hydrologists and chemists. Begins with an introduction to regolith studies and continues with an outline of weathering mechanisms and the weathering of minerals and rocks. Discusses hydrology within the regolith; how climate influences regolith development; landforms and surficial sediments...
The palaeoplain is the terrestrial continental surface, little changed from the landsurface that existed before continental breakup. The basal unconformity occurs offshore, separating older continental rocks from younger post-rift sediments. This paper considers the palaeoplain and the basal unconformity to be the same surface. It presents a hypoth...
In southeast Australia the history of river development, basin sedimentation and the evolution of major divides can all be correlated. The region has a basement of Palaeozoic rocks eroded to a palaeoplain on which lie two sedimentary basins separated by a system of warp axes. The Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is Mesozoic; The Murray Basin is Cenozoic....
Considers some misconceptions related to weathering processes, catenas, vertical or lateral movements, landscape lowering, equilibrium, and the relevance of past and present climates, and stresses the need for care in both pure and applied regolith research.
Rivers flowing north and west across southeastern Australia are older
than the formation of the eastern continental margin and the Murray
Basin. In the Jurassic and most of the Cretaceous, Australia was bound
by land to the east (Pacifica), from which rivers carried sediment to
the Eromanga-Surat Basin. The Otway-Gippsland Basin, bound to the north...
The Clarence River on Australia's east coast has an anomalous drainage pattern. Its right-bank tributaries are markedly barbed, suggesting reversal, whereas Tertiary volcanism has disrupted its left-bank drainage. The southeast-flowing Clarence is closely aligned with the northwest-flowing Condamine River just across the Continental Divide. The Con...
In Cape York Peninsula ferricrete is found in a wide variety of locations, including scarp edges, lower valley slopes, around surface depressions, on gently sloping interfluves and on recently eroded surfaces. Ferricretes are not associated with any particular geomorphic surfaces, but rather occur where conditions are suitable for iron accumulation...
The laterite profile consists of ferricrete overlying saprolite. Examples from our field observations and from the literature demonstrate that in many, if not all, cases ferricrete consists of detrital material younger than the underlying weathering zone(s) from which it is separated by an unconformity. Heretofore, a detrital origin for ferricretes...
The Lake Albert region is described as an example of a rift valley. It is far more complex than the typical graben used by rift valley modellers. The northern section is a complex half graben with en echelon faults and warps on the west. The central section is a graben, but with uplift axes remote from the faults. The southern section is complicate...
Australian regolith materials are described, many of which are complex. Much Australian regolith dates back to the Tertiary, Mesozoic or earlier. There is a progressive change in the nature of alluvium through the Tertiary. Aridity, revealed through sand dunes and evaporites, is confined to the Quaternary. Ferricretes and silcretes are formed on lo...
Palaeomagnetic dating of Australia's regolith is becoming more refined with advances in techniques and better definition of the Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic apparent polar wander path of Australia. The suspected great antiquity of parts of the regolith is being confirmed through the application of palaeomagnetic dating to authigenic iron oxides which...
Gabbro at The Crescent, New England, gives an apatite fission track age consistent with K‐Ar ages of basalts on the Dorrigo Plateau, supporting the hypothesis of a Miocene shield volcano centred on The Crescent intrusive complex.
Fluvial sediments in paleovaileys cut in the Ashburton surface of the Davenport province of central Australia form terrace remnants that appear to retain their original depositional tops and have probably existed as subaerial landforms since their inception. Marine fossils in sediments conformable with the fluvial sediments near the southeast margi...
Altered granites are sometimes attributed to deep weathering, and sometimes to hydrothermal alteration. The nature of the evidence for the latter is discussed, and found inadequate in many instances. The alteration at Bega, Australia, and Dartmoor, England, is considered to result from deep weathering.
Burning logs near granodiorite rocks in the Armidale region caused severe disintegration including radial and tangential cracking and rocks broken right through the middle. The prevalence of bushfires suggest the process may be important in rock disintegration in Australia. The mechanism of rock splitting by heat is discussed: the coefficient of ex...
The Dorrigo Plateau is covered by basalt, which is a remnant of the 18 Ma old Ebor Volcano. The centre of this volcano is an intrusion in the Bellinger Valley. The volcano was erupted on a palaeoplain of moderate relief. Subsequent uplift and tilting led to erosion of the Nambucca Beds, together with much of the volcano, and creation of a major esc...
Potassium-argon ages measured on 11 volcanic rocks, mainly lavas, from Tristan da Cunha range from 0.21 ± 0.01 to 0.01 ± 0.02 Ma, and confirm the youthfulness of this volcano, which lies on the Walvis Ridge just to the east of the crest of the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
The landforms on the Omara granodiorite of Fergusson Island consist of finely dissected terrain with V-shaped valleys, generally straight slopes and sharp ridge crests, giving a feral relief. The main processes of landscape development are surface wash, mass movement, and stream incision. Weathering and slope denudation apparently keep pace with bu...
Surficial gneiss domes are previously undescribed landforms 2 to 3000m high and tens of kilometres across, consisting of gneiss and with the form of a dissected dome. On geomorphic grounds it is extremely unlikely that the domes could be formed by differential erosion, so it is proposed that they emerged at the ground surface by shouldering aside t...
Surficial gneiss domes are previously undescribed landforms two to three thousand metres high and tens of kilometres across, consisting of gneiss; they have the form of a dissected dome. On geomorphic grounds it is unlikely that the domes could be formed by differential erosion, so it is proposed that they emerged at the ground surface by shoulderi...
By means of examples it is demonstrated that much of the geomorphology of Australia dates back to early Cenozoic, Mesozoic and even Palaeozoic times. Papua-New Guinea is built of several fragments that had different histories before they collided with the Australian plate, and it is meaningless to construct a geomorphic history on the present map o...
Investigations described from three Victorian damsites indicate that weathering of Ordovician bedrock is increased where it is overlain by basalt, even though the basalt is little weathered. Sub‐basaltic weathering may account for the fact that weathered rock beneath a Jurassic lava flow gives a weathering remagnetization age of Mid‐Cainozoic, cons...
Spheroidal weathering, in which concentric shells completely surround a corestone, is distinguished from other types of exfoliation. After a brief description of field observations, the many suggested causes of spheroidal weathering are discussed. Hypotheses proposed involve expansion (produced in various ways), unloading, constant volume alteratio...
Most research into the geomorphology of mountains since the 1970s accepts the plate tectonic explanation of mountains, that mountains are a result of collision along con-verging plate boundaries. For example, the first paragraph of Chapter 2 in Owens and Slaymaker (2004) states that mountain systems "are major belts of pervasive deforma-tion". But...
Global warming alarmists have suggested that the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica may collapse, causing disastrous sea level rise. This idea is based on the concept of an ice sheet sliding down an inclined plane on a base lubricated by meltwater, which is itself increasing because of global warming. In reality the Greenland and Antarctic ice...
Graphs of sea level for twelve locations in the southwest Pacific show stable sea level for about ten years over the region. The data are compared with results from elsewhere, all of which suggest that any rise of global sea level is negligible. The Darwin theory of coral formation, and subsidence ideas for guyots would suggest that we should see m...
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The Buwekula catena occupies a tor landscape which was formed in two stages, as in Linton's two-cycle theory. Weathering under present conditions has been traced from the proportions of minerals. Feldspar and magnetite show weathering trends and among non-opaque heavy minerals there is an order of weatherability in the series biotite, muscovite, an...