What Does The Devils Marbles Look Like

The net result is the piles of perched and rounded granite boulders or tors.

What does the devils marbles look like. Karlu karlu these are great granite boulders that have been strewn across a flat valley commonly known as the devil s marbles. 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. The devils marbles are an iconic landmark in australia s outback. How were devils marbles formed.

For the local aboriginal people the devils marbles or karlu karlu are a key part of the creation story. It is a sacred site for them and the reserve is actually considered to be a dangerous area for many aboriginal men and women. The local indigenous australians call the region karlu karlu round boulders and consider it a sacred site. The sizes vary massively and some are still more rectangular than others.

Back then they had none of that. Standing at up to 6 metres high and formed over millions of years they continue to crack and change. The devils marbles are large granitic boulders that form the exposed top layer of an extensive and mostly underground granite formation. The devils marbles are a collection of massive granite boulders strewn across a valley south of tennant creek.

On top of the granite a thick sedimentary layer of sandstone formed that compressed the granite under its immense weight. The outer skins eventually cracked and fell off rounding the boulders so they look like peeling onions. Actually they vary in size from 50 cm up to six metres across and they are strewn across a large area. A dreaming story says the devil man created these features when he left twirled clusters of hair on the ground that became round boulders.

The natural processes of weathering and erosion have created the various shapes of the boulders. Walking around the devils marbles my mind wandered as it often does at places like this to what it must have been like being an aboriginal or even an early western explorer and coming across these for the first time. The devils marbles or karlu karlu as they are known by the local warumungu aboriginals are a collection of huge red rounded granite boulders. 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.

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.