When was devils marbles discovered

Aboriginal people also value the Marbles as place to find water. As water is a scarce resource in Central Australia, the small waterholes that can be found in the creek in north west of the reserve were particularly important to people camping or passing through. There are even land crabs to be found at Karlu Karlu, that are particularly important and much loved bush tucker for Alyawarre people.

If you take anything away from this page, then please, take the true Dreaming Story for the Devils Marbles, not the incorrect, New Age-inspired one! Arrange, the Devil Man, came from Ayleparrarntenhe and travelled through the area. During his journey, he was making a hair belt as worn by initiated men.

Twirling the hair into strings, Arrange dropped clusters of hair on the ground. These turned into the Karlu Karlu boulders that can be seen today. On his way back, Arrange spat on the ground. His spit also turned into the granite boulders which dot the central part of the reserve. Arrange finally returned to his place of origin, Ayleparrarntenhe. Ayleparrarntenhe is not only the correct name for this area, it is also the name of the twin-peaked hill to the east of the reserve where Arrange the Devil Man came from and returned to once he finished making the Marbles.

He remains in these hills today. The area is significant to both Aboriginal men and women, who hold separate and different stories, songs and ceremonies for the site.

Senior Traditional Owners sit on a management committee that oversees the management of the reserve together with rangers.

A small employment scheme sees young Aboriginal men and women looking after the reserve and learning from rangers. There is also a local Indigenous Ranger group in Tennant Creek, who also look after the reserve from time to time. During the winter months, rangers have night time campfire talks where Senior Traditional Owners often come and tell Dreaming stories or stories about their lives to visitors. The original granite blocks were formed during Creation and later sculpted in the harsh environmental conditions after the Flood.

A dreaming story says the Devil Man created these features when he left twirled clusters of hair on the ground that became round boulders. Evolutionary geologists say the rocks formed deep in the earth 1. The erosion of the granite in the conventional geologic story does explain the boulders but not the timing of their formation. This granite mass likely formed during the Creation Week.

The actual science behind these boulders is pretty straightforward. There the granite magma cooled and crystallized to form the rock called granite. These granite masses shrunk a little as they cooled and crystallized, but no cracks opened up because the immense weight of the overlying rock layers pushed the rock mass tightly together. However, once the overlying rock layers eroded away during the Flood, the release of weight allowed cracks to open up. Because of the regular pattern of mineral crystals in granite, the cracks followed an even and geometric pattern see figure.

The granite mass broke up into many large blocks, roughly cubic in shape. Many of these blocks wore away quickly under the heavy rains and harsh conditions that immediately followed the Flood. Water carried chemicals down into the cracks, causing the granite to weather and decay rapidly.

Two processes sped up the breakdown. The surfaces constantly expanded and contracted as a result of chemical weathering and daily temperature fluctuations. Even today, they are continuously evolving in a constant stream of cracking and erosion. As well as making an eye-catching natural landscape, the Devils Marble are important to the local Warumungu, Kaytetye, Alyawarra, and Warlpiri people who live in the traditional country that surrounds them.

Many legends of the stones have been passed down through several generations, but they are incredible secret so only a few can be shared amongst visitors in the region. One of the most popular Dreamtime stories that involves the rocks relates to how they came to be.