A Contribution to the Glacial Geology of Tasmania

Abstract

I. Introduction. The existence of Pleistocene glaciation in Southern Australia has been so often affirmed on unsatisfactory evidence, that the assertion of a recent glaciation in Tasmania has been received with doubt. Two years ago I read through the literature on the glaciation of Tasmania, and came to the conclusion that, except for such traces of high-level glacial action as those at Mount Sedgwick, recorded by E. J. Dunn and T. B. Moore, and those near the summit of Mount Ida, recorded by Officer, Balfour, and Hogg, the evidence consisted of material that was either not of glacial origin, or was due to glacial action at some Upper Palaeozoic date. The advocates of a low-level, recent glaciation in Tasmania were men who had apparently received no special geological training, and who had not written other papers by which the value of their geological observations could be tested. The professional and the trained geologists were almost unanimous in denying the existence of signs of recent ice-action in the lower valleys of Tasmania. II. The Geology and Topography of the Area. It may be advisable here to introduce a short statement of the geological structure and physical geography of that part of Tasmania in which the deposits described as glacial occur. Most of them have been recorded from the country beside the West-Coast Range, and the western part of the Central Plateau of Tasmania. The West-Coast Range runs north and south, at a distance of 20 to 25 miles from the western