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] These pools are commonly a few metres across and less than 30 cm (12 in) deep, however in some instances they may reach several metres deep and up to 100 m (330 ft) across. Gilgais are found worldwide wherever cracking clay soils and pronounced wet and dry seasons are present.[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.