Gilgai

This article is about the landform. For the town, see Gilgai, New South Wales.

A gilgai is a small, ephemeral lake formed from a surface depression in expanding clay soils. Gilgai is also used to refer to the overall micro-relief in such areas, consisting of mounds and depressions. The name comes from an Australian Aboriginal word meaning small water hole.[1] The pools are commonly a few metres across and less than 30 cm (12 in) deep but, in some instances, they may be several metres deep and up to 100 m (330 ft) across. Gilgais are found worldwide wherever there are cracking clay soils and marked wet and dry seasons.[1] Gilgais are also called melonholes, crabholes, hogwallows, or puff and shelf formations.[2]

A gilgai landscape, Queensland
  1. ^ a b Schaetzl, Randall J.; Anderson, Sharon (2007). Soils : genesis and geomorphology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 283. ISBN 978-0521812016.
  2. ^ Hallsworth, E. G., Robertson, G. K., and F. R. Gibbons. 1955. Studies in pedogenesis in New South Wales. VII. The ‘‘gilgai” soils. J. Soil Sci. 6: 1–31.