Dr John Martyn’s new book The Geology and Flora of the Sydney Basin: A Photographic Journey is not only a comprehensive understanding of the Sydney Basin’s geology but a celebration of its unique and outstanding beauty.

The Sydney Basin is a complex layering of sedimentary and igneous rocks shaped by tectonic and erosional events. It is located on land two-thirds the size of Tasmania. The book is an updated and expanded version of Rocks and Trees (2018) and explores more thoroughly the Sydney Basin of which Ku-ring-gai’s bushland is part of.

John Martyn is a foundational member of FOKE’s Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion Steering Committee when FOKE conceived of this project in 2018.

The Sydney Basin is a diverse and geologically rich landscape and what makes Sydney such a unique global city with its stunning floristic beauty and threatened ecological communities.

The term Sydney Basin describes the geology of a vast area of Permian and Triassic sedimentary and volcanic rocks across 25,000 sq km, extending eastwards onto the continental shelf. It is the southernmost in a chain of depositional basins that extends right through to the Queensland coast near Bowen. The boundary between the Sydney and adjoining Gunnedah Basins is gradational northwards. Sydney Basin rocks also formed well to the south, outcropping in the Durras area.

The Sydney Basin’s Ku-ring-gai GeoRegion includes the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and northern Sydney bushland and coastal areas. It also includes the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, Ku-ring-gai Chase, Royal National, and the Sydney Harbour national parks.

Geologically the Sydney Basin is a complex succession of sedimentary and igneous rocks shaped by tectonic and erosional events. It is predominantly sandstone. This sandstone foundation is what has created Sydney’s unique floristically diverse bushland with its beautiful wildflowers. The Sydney Basin sandstone landscape and unique native vegetation was critical in the listing of the World Heritage Greater Blue Mountains National Park. Much of the Sydney Basin’s bushland remain today because Europeans avoided these areas because they were places with unfavourable soil for agriculture.

Cost: $80 Order your copy from STEP HERE

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Related Items:

• Geology of the Sydney Basin
• John Martyn’s New Book, Rocks and Trees
• Wianamatta Group
• Sandstone-Shale Transition – the Mittagong Formation
• Hawkesbury Sandstone Shale Lenses