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Springs in the Alice - 🌏 EarthCache
A simple EarthCache to highlight the "springs" that give the town its name
Until the early 1930s, Alice Springs was the name given to the what was thought to be a permanent waterhole in the normally dry Todd River that was optimistically named by Government Surveyor WW Mills in March 1871, while exploring the MacDonnell Ranges during the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line with the the Telegraph Station being built adjacent to the waterhole.
The Todd River which flows past the Telegraph Station is an ephemeral river. Ephemeral rivers are located in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid drylands of the earth that have a temporary surface flow that varies between seasons and years, nevertheless support ecological systems that have been used by people and wildlife for thousands of years.
Much on the centre of Australia is an arid or semi-arid landscape, and the low average annual rainfalls make it difficult for the rivers to run and the lakes to fill. Flooding events are critical to the ecology of the arid zone, which has adapted to the 'boom and bust' nature of resource availability. Although during dry times water may not be visible, it is still present under the sand.
During the building of the Overland Telegraph Line that W.W. Mills, discovering the normally dry riverbed, he followed it down, found pool after pool of clear water. That night he wrote in his diary about numerous waterholes and springs. The normally dry river had water in it and was mistakenly thought to be a permanent waterhole coming across what he thought was a natural spring in the river system. The "spring" here in Alice Springs isn't really a spring. It's a depression in the riverbed where water gets trapped on top of some granite.
Questions to log this EarthCache
Q1 Is the namesake here of Alice Springs, actually a spring? Explain why or why not.
Q2 What is an ephemeral river?
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