What Does The Devils Marbles Look Like

A dreaming story says the devil man created these features when he left twirled clusters of hair on the ground that became round boulders.

What does the devils marbles look like.

The devils marbles are one of those legendary outback places that everyone wants to visit and take a photo. The devils marbles are a collection of massive granite boulders strewn across a valley south of tennant creek. The outer skins eventually cracked and fell off rounding the boulders so they look like peeling onions. The natural processes of weathering and erosion have created the various shapes of the boulders.

On top of the granite a thick sedimentary layer of sandstone formed that compressed the granite under its immense weight. The devils marbles are an iconic landmark in australia s outback. The name is quite unfair suggesting that this place has been created by a hellish being to trick the weary outback traveller or to give them the wrong impression of safety. How were devils marbles formed.

Back then they had none of that. The net result is the piles of perched and rounded granite boulders or tors. Standing at up to 6 metres high and formed over millions of years they continue to crack and change. The sizes vary massively and some are still more rectangular than others.

The local indigenous australians call the region karlu karlu round boulders and consider it a sacred site. Actually they vary in size from 50 cm up to six metres across and they are strewn across a large area. We ve all seen the photos of someone surfing on one of the marbles or someone else holding one in their hand you know those big red boulders that are somewhere in the outback. For the local aboriginal people the devils marbles or karlu karlu are a key part of the creation story.

They blew my mind even though i had a vague understanding of why and how they were here. The devil s marbles started life nearly 2 billion years ago as the magma cooled in the earth s crust to form the igneous rock granite. These processes together are thus called spheroidal or onionskin weathering. The devils marbles or karlu karlu as they are known by the local warumungu aboriginals are a collection of huge red rounded granite boulders.

It is a sacred site for them and the reserve is actually considered to be a dangerous area for many aboriginal men and women.