Browns Field (New South Wales)

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Browns Field (New South Wales)
New South Wales
Browns Field with tractor.jpg
Browns Field rainforest NSW.jpg
rainforest at Browns Field
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Browns Field (New South Wales)
Coordinates 33°44′2.8″S151°06′30.45″E / 33.734111°S 151.1084583°E / -33.734111; 151.1084583 Coordinates: 33°44′2.8″S151°06′30.45″E / 33.734111°S 151.1084583°E / -33.734111; 151.1084583
Website Browns Field (New South Wales)

Browns Field is located in Fox Valley Wahroonga, 17 km (11 mi) north-west from Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It contains a small sporting ground and a bushland reserve. A unique rainforest grows nearby, due to enriched soils from ancient volcanic activity. [1]

Wahroonga, New South Wales Suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Wahroonga is an affluent north shore suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 22 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Ku-ring-gai Council and Hornsby Shire.

Sydney City in New South Wales, Australia

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". As of June 2017, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,131,326, and is home to approximately 65% of the state's population.

New South Wales State of Australia

New South Wales is a state on the east coast of Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria to the south, and South Australia to the west. Its coast borders the Tasman Sea to the east. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within the state. New South Wales' state capital is Sydney, which is also Australia's most populous city. In March 2018, the population of New South Wales was over 7.9 million, making it Australia's most populous state. Just under two-thirds of the state's population, 5.1 million, live in the Greater Sydney area. Inhabitants of New South Wales are referred to as New South Welshmen.

Contents

Geology

Browns Field is situated on a maar-diatreme. It was around 200 metres in diameter. The mafic soils are a typical dark colour. The diatreme occurred in the early Jurassic, around 200 million years ago. The volcanic explosion erupted through the local Sydney sandstone. Much of the rock formed by the diatreme is buried under soil cover, as well as landfill that helped create the sports oval at Browns Field. The soil is a mixture of organic material, and a soil horizon made up of weathered regolith particles. Rocky evidence of the diatreme is not obviously seen. [1] [2]

Maar Low-relief volcanic crater

A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption. A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake which may also be called a maar. The name comes from a Moselle Franconian dialect word used for the circular lakes of the Daun area of Germany. Maars are shallow, flat-floored craters that scientists interpret as having formed above diatremes as a result of a violent expansion of magmatic gas or steam; deep erosion of a maar presumably would expose a diatreme. Maars range in size from 60 to 8,000 m across and from 10 to 200 m deep; most maars commonly fill with water to form natural lakes. Most maars have low rims composed of a mixture of loose fragments of volcanic rocks and rocks torn from the walls of the diatreme.

Diatreme A volcanic pipe formed by a gaseous explosion

A diatreme, sometimes known as a maar-diatreme volcano, is a volcanic pipe formed by a gaseous explosion. When magma rises up through a crack in the Earth's crust and makes contact with a shallow body of ground water, rapid expansion of heated water vapor and volcanic gases can cause a series of explosions. A relatively shallow crater is left and a rock filled fracture in the Earth's crust. Diatremes breach the Earth's surface and produce a steep inverted cone shape.

Mafic Silicate mineral or igneous rock that is rich in magnesium and iron

Mafic is an adjective describing a silicate mineral or igneous rock that is rich in magnesium and iron, and is thus a portmanteau of magnesium and ferric. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite. Common mafic rocks include basalt, diabase and gabbro. Mafic rocks often also contain calcium-rich varieties of plagioclase feldspar.

History

The local indigenous Australian people, the Kuringgai occupied this area for thousands of years. The emancipated convict Thomas Hyndes settled the nearby area in 1822. In 1838, Governor Darling made a 259 hectare land grant to Hyndes. He worked the land with convict labour supplying timber to the colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the area was sold to John Brown, a merchant and timber getter. He also planted orchards nearby. [3] Locally known as 'Squire Brown', he owned of a square mile of land. At his peak, he employed one hundred pairs of pit-sawyers. These were used for various projects, including the supply of timber for the Pyrmont and Glebe Island Bridges. [4] The area currently used as a sporting field was once indigenous forest, and later, a rubbish tip.

Indigenous Australians are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia, descended from groups that existed in Australia and surrounding islands before British colonisation. The time of arrival of the first Indigenous Australians is a matter of debate among researchers. The earliest conclusively human remains found in Australia are those of Mungo Man LM3 and Mungo Lady, which have been dated to around 50,000 years BP. Recent archaeological evidence from the analysis of charcoal and artefacts revealing human use suggests a date as early as 65,000 BP. Luminescence dating has suggested habitation in Arnhem Land as far back as 60,000 years BP. Genetic research has inferred a date of habitation as early as 80,000 years BP. Other estimates have ranged up to 100,000 years and 125,000 years BP.

Kuringgai

Kuringgai is an ethnonym referring to (a) an hypothesis regarding an aggregation of indigenous Australian peoples occupying the territory between the southern borders of the Gamilaraay and the area around Sydney (b) perhaps an historical people with its own distinctive language, now lost, once located in part of that territory, or (c) people of aboriginal origin who identify themselves as descending from the original peoples denoted by (a) or (b) and who call themselves Guringai.

An emancipist was a convict sentenced and transported under the convict system to Australia, who had been given a conditional or absolute pardon. The term was also used to refer to those convicts whose sentences had expired, and might sometimes be used of free settlers who supported full civil rights for emancipated convicts.

Recreation

The oval is used for various activities such as football and cricket. [5] A bushwalking track starts near the field. [6]

Association football Team field sport

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal.

Cricket Team sport played with bats and balls

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 20-metre (22-yard) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at the wicket with the bat, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each player. Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, and by the fielding side catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground. When ten players have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches. They communicate with two off-field scorers who record the match's statistical information.

Hiking walking as a hobby, sport, or leisure activity

Hiking is the preferred term, in Canada and the United States, for a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails (footpaths), in the countryside, while the word walking is used for shorter, particularly urban walks. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, the word "walking" is acceptable to describe all forms of walking, whether it is a walk in the park or backpacking in the Alps. The word hiking is also often used in the UK, along with rambling, hillwalking, and fell walking. The term bushwalking is endemic to Australia, having been adopted by the Sydney Bush Walkers club in 1927. In New Zealand a long, vigorous walk or hike is called tramping. It is a popular activity with numerous hiking organizations worldwide, and studies suggest that all forms of walking have health benefits.

Flora

Many rainforest plants unusual to the Sydney area are present. Such as golden sassafras, [7] jackwood, scrub turpentine, wild quince, giant maidenhair, fishbone water fern, strap water fern, and the sub tropical rainforest tree, the koda. [8] The paucity of fire, dark volcanic soils and high rainfall, contribute to rainforest vegetation. The average annual rainfall is 1,400 mm (55 in) at the nearby Kissing Point Road weather station. [9]

Rainforest type of forest with high rainfall

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with annual rainfall in the case of tropical rainforests between 250 and 450 centimetres, and definitions varying by region for temperate rainforests. The monsoon trough, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earth's tropical rainforests.

<i>Doryphora sassafras</i> species of plant

Doryphora sassafras, commonly known as sassafras, yellow-, canary- or golden sassafras, or golden deal, is a species of evergreen tree of the family Atherospermataceae native to the subtropical and temperate rainforests of eastern New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. It is a tall tree with green foliage and contrasting white flowers which occur in Autumn and Winter.

<i>Cryptocarya glaucescens</i> species of plant

Cryptocarya glaucescens, commonly known as jackwood, is a rainforest tree of the laurel family growing in eastern Australia.

Fauna

Ring-tail possums, brushtail possums and grey-headed flying foxes are common. Many bird species live nearby, such as rainbow lorikeets, Australian king parrots, crimson rosellas, currawongs, koel and the tawny frogmouth. The powerful owl is known to nest in the reserve. [1]

Common ringtail possum species of mammal

The common ringtail possum is an Australian marsupial. It lives in a variety of habitats and eats a variety of leaves of both native and introduced plants, as well as flowers, fruits and sap. This possum also consumes a special type of faeces that is produced during the daytime when it is resting in a nest. This behaviour is called caecotrophy and is similar to that seen in rabbits.

Brushtail possum genus of mammals

The brushtail possums are the members of the genus Trichosurus in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are unique among marsupials for having shifted the hypaxial muscles from the epipubic to the pelvis, much like in placental muscles, meaning that their breathing cycle is more similar to the latter than to that of other non-eutherian mammals. In general, they are more terrestrial oriented than other possums, and in some ways might parallel primates.

Grey-headed flying fox species of mammal

The grey-headed flying fox is a megabat native to Australia. The species shares mainland Australia with three other members of the genus Pteropus: the little red P. scapulatus, spectacled P. conspicillatus, and the black P. alecto.

Bush regeneration

Forest conservation work is in progress. The weeds trad and privet being particularly troublesome. [8]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Field Guide to the Bushland of the Lane Cove Valley - John Martyn ISBN   9780957839021 page 106
  2. ↑ Browns Field Diatreme.pdf - Ku-ring-gai Council
  3. ↑ FOX VALLEY ROAD WAHROONGA HERITAGE CONSERVATION AREA REVIEW SUMMARY REPORT John Oultram Heritage & Design Level 2, 386 New South Head Road, Double Bay, NSW 2028 retrieved September 27th, 2016
  4. ↑ Ku-ring-gai Historical Society - Wahroonga, retrieved September 29th, 2016
  5. ↑ Facilities at Browns Field
  6. ↑ Ku-ring-gai Council - Twin Creeks and Browns Field Track
  7. ↑ Australian Virtual Herbarium: record of Doryphora sassafras at Browns Field, retrieved September 29th, 2016
  8. 1 2 Ku-ring-gai Council - information sign
  9. ↑ http://www.bom.gov.au/ Bureau of Meteorology, Australian Government - Kissing Point Road Weather Station
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