Erskine Falls are at the end of Erskine Falls Road 10km north west of Lorne.
The falls are located within the Great Otway National Park which is a spectacular area of native forest, and there are plenty of opportunities to get closer to nature with walking tracks and trails in the area. There are seven waterfalls within the bushland surrounding Lorne, with different accessibility levels, this one being a 300m return walk to the falls 1st lookout, 700 m to 2nd lookout (many stairs)
The Great Otway National Park, also called The Otways, is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The 103,185-hectare (254,980-acre) national park is situated approximately 162 kilometres southwest of Melbourne.
Basin Details and Geological Overview The Otway Basin is a north-west to south-east striking, divergent margin, rift and drift basin. It is approximately 500km long from Cape Jaffa in South Australia to north-west Tasmania and forms part of the 4 000km long Jurassic-Cretaceous Australian Southern Rift System.
A Geological Summary of this area has discovered that the Late Jurassic-Cenozoic Otway Basin is a large, northwest trending on/offshore basin on the southern Australian passive margin. Exploration is mature onshore and immature offshore, with >200 wells in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. Commercial gas discoveries include industrial grade CO2. Thankfully no commercial oil discoveries have been identified.
The basin formed by multi-stage rift-sag and inversion phases. Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous rifting resulted in the east-west trending Inner Otway Basin. Late Cretaceous rifting, culminating in continental breakup in the Maastrichtian, produced northwest-southeast trending depocentres beneath the outer shelf and slope. Multiple phases of compression in the Cretaceous-Recent resulted in inversion and wrenching of pre-existing structures. The basin contains five major depocentres, the mainly onshore Inner Otway Basin, the offshore Morum, Nelson and Hunter Sub-basins and eastern Torquay Sub-basin. The Latest Jurassic-Early Cretaceous Otway Supergroup comprises up to 8km of continental and fluvio-lacustrine sediments that accumulated in grabens and half-grabens of the first rifting event. Coastal-plain, deltaic and marine sediments of the Late Cretaceous Sherbrook Group are up to 5km thick.
The Paleocene-middle Eocene Wangerrip Group sediments were deposited in coastal plain, deltaic and inner shelf settings and are separated from the open marine, mixed carbonates/siliciclastics of the Eocene-Miocene Nirrandra and Heytesbury groups, by a major unconformity. The main exploration targets in the Otway Basin are the Waarre Sandstone at the base of the Sherbrook Group and sandstones of the Pretty Hill Formation and Katnook Sandstone/Windermere Sandstone Member in the Early Cretaceous section. The main source rocks occur in the Early Cretaceous section. Regional and intraformational seals exist in the Pretty Hill, Laira, Eumeralla and Flaxman formations, the Belfast, Skull Creek and Pember mudstones and mudstones and marls of the Wangerrip, Nirrandra and Heytesbury groups.
Otway Basin
Questions
Q1 The posted coordinates will have you at the top of the falls. Describe what you see in the surrounding rock wall left and right of the falls (eg colours, texture of the rock)
Q2 Once you have reached the bottom of the falls, describe the rock at the base of the falls and near the viewing deck.
To the left of the start of the wooden walkway there is a mossy wooden sign.
Q3 At what height are the falls?
Q4 Coastal-plain, deltaic and marine sediments of the Late Cretaceous Sherbrook Group are up to how thick?
Once you complete the EarthCache requirements you can post your find without delay, as per the EarthCache guidelines. You will also need to verify your find by sending me a message and provide your answers to the questions.
Please note that GPSr signals can vary a lot in this location. Please stick to the tracks. Visits to the top viewing deck and lower viewing deck are required.
For a link to my profile, click here - Na'wal
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References ~ Geo Science Australia & Wikipedia