MILANG, South Australia

LAKESIDE, SCRUB & PLAINS

Between eleven and twenty-five million years ago the plains between the Mount Lofty Ranges and Lake Alexandrina were covered by the sea. This is the reason for the beds of fossil shells in the cliffs of the Murray River between Tailem Bend and Morgan and for the limestone which underlies the Milang district.

Since that time the land has been raised and a series of changes in sea-level has produced a succession of coastal barrier dunes like Younghusband Peninsula of the present time. Point Sturt peninsula is one of these old coastal dunes and the widespread sandy soils of the district are the remains of other such dunes.

As the Murray River carved out a valley through the old limestone rocks on its way to the sea, the barrier dunes caused the formation of the lower Murray Lakes, of which Lake Alexandrina is the largest.

After this, the raising up of the Mount Lofty Ranges caused the formation of two small rivers, the Angas and the Bremer, which flow down the hillslopes towards the Lake. As a result, over several thousand years, these two streams have deposited a layer of alluvium over an area about 10 km wide which is now the rich loamy soil of Angas Plains.

As a result of this geological process it is possible to distinguish three types of land in the Milang district.

* Lakeside: the area near the edge of the Lake; characterised by black swamp soils. The characteristic vegetation is samphire and other salt-tolerant plants.
* Scrub: characterised by soils with a high limestone content. The area was originally dominated by dense mallee scrub, much of which was cleared for farming in the early 20th century. On Point Sturt the mallee was not as prevalent, instead sheoaks and melaleucas were common.
* Plains: the area surrounding the Angas and Bremer rivers. The natural vegetation was typically savannah woodland, with blue gums and kangaroo grass; while the courses of the rivers were marked by lines of magnificent river red gums.

Information and map taken from: Faull, Jim (Ed) Alexandrina's Shore, A History of the Milang District (1981).