Qualla: Great Australian Bight

Great Australian Bight: Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Iurii Ostakhov, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fifty million years ago, the supercontinent Gondwana tore itself in two along what is now Australia's southern edge. Antarctica drifted south. Australia drifted north. And the ocean rushed in to fill the wound, creating the Great Australian Bight -- a sweeping arc of open water stretching more than 1,100 kilometers along the continent's underbelly. The cliffs here rise 60 meters straight from the sea, their limestone faces carved by swells that have rolled uninterrupted from the Antarctic. It is a coastline built by separation, and the life it sustains is astonishing.

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Image: Iurii Ostakhov | CC BY-SA 4.0

Great Australian Bight: Where the Continent Crumbles

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit LornLNicholls, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bight's coastline is a study in geological drama. Limestone cliffs, aeolianite formations shaped by ancient winds, drop sheer into water that churns white and cold below. Rocky capes alternate with surfing beaches and wave-cut platforms. The Nullarbor Plain -- that immense, t...

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Image: LornLNicholls | CC BY-SA 4.0

Great Australian Bight: The Engine Beneath the Surface

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tavana Whamond, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Bight's waters appear nutrient-poor at first glance. The Nullarbor contributes no rivers, no runoff, no terrestrial nutrients. Yet each summer and autumn, deep ocean currents well up along the Eyre Peninsula coast, pushing cold, nutrient-rich water toward the surface. These u...

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Image: Tavana Whamond | CC BY-SA 4.0

Great Australian Bight: The Whale Nursery

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Cordia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each winter, southern right whales make the long journey from their Antarctic feeding grounds to the sheltered waters of the Bight. They come not to eat -- they will fast until they return south -- but to calve and breed. The Head of the Bight, where the cliffs curve inward, offe...

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Image: Ben Cordia | CC BY-SA 4.0

Great Australian Bight: Charting the Unknown Shore

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Виктор В, CC BY-SA 3.0. Dutch navigator Francois Thijssen was the first European to encounter the Bight, sailing along its western margins aboard the Gulden Zeepaert in 1627. It would be another 175 years before anyone mapped it properly. In 1802, English navigator Matthew Flinders charted the coastline...

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Image: Виктор В | CC BY-SA 3.0

Great Australian Bight: The Fight Over What Lies Below

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Melonheadmong, CC BY-SA 4.0. Since the 1960s, the petroleum industry has eyed the Bight's continental shelf. In the mid-2010s, three oil majors -- BP, Equinor, and Chevron -- proposed exploration drilling in its deeper waters. The response was fierce. Environmental modeling by the Wilderness Society demonstr...

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Image: Melonheadmong | CC BY-SA 4.0