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Blanchetown Clay

Blanchetown Clay was deposited in an ancient large freshwater lake called Lake Bungunnia during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene (2.5-3.5 million years ago - 0.7 million years ago, An et al 1986). These deposits consist mainly of red-brown and green mottled clays (usually vertic and sodic).

This video shows Jim Rowan talking about Blanchetown Clay deposits on the edge of Lake Tyrell in the Mallee region of Victoria. Jim produced the 1963 report on 'A Study of the Land in North-Western Victoria' and re-visited the region as part of a (former) DPI excursion in November 2008 when this video was filmed.

This video clip runs for 41 seconds and is 2.7MB in size, this will take some time to automatically download if you are using a slow internet connection.

Transcript: "This Blanchetown Clay was deposited - it varies in thickness today from about 1 metre to about 60 metres. I don’t know how big this would be, this would only be about 10 metres. Of course like everything in nature this big lake waxed and waned. I think judging by this, looking at this face, there has been a whole series of depositions and weathering, depositions and weathering."
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