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Devil's Marbles by Shannon and Jessica. |
| THE Devil's Marbles create a bold and unexpected landscape. Located on a gently undulating plain of quartz gravel, 100 kilometres south of the Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek, they are giant granite domes, some standing isolated, others balancing precariously one top of another. They are the only distinctive natural landmark for hundreds of square kilometres. The marbles are buried from less than a metre to as much as 6 metres in diameter. They are derived from a single mass of granite which crystallised more then 150 million years ago. |  |
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This granite had three sets of joint planes at right angles to each other and over millions of years and weathering along the joints, they broke down the original mass into blocks. There has been continued weathering which was greatest at the corners, where rainwater and wind attacked from three directions gradually smoothing down the rock. |
