Why Almost Nobody Lives in the Kimberley

📍 Free map of Australia's 25 emptiest places + the Field Files guides: https://theemptycontinent.com The Kimberley is about the size of California, yet fewer than 40,000 people live there. California has almost 40 million. The answer starts with some of the oldest rock on the continent. A 1.8-billion-year-old plateau, a Devonian reef you can walk through, the oldest known heart of any jawed animal, the striped domes of the Bungle Bungles, Wolfe Creek Crater, the 2023 flood that broke the Fitzroy River Bridge, 11-metre tides and the Horizontal Falls, Gwion Gwion rock art, Jandamarra, one of Australia's most famous cattle drives and the Argyle pink diamonds. The Field Files: 150 of Australia's emptiest places, outposts and survivors, as digital PDF guides (plus a free map): https://theemptycontinent.com Chapters: 0:00 A corner the size of California 0:29 Some of the oldest rock on the continent 1:15 A reef on dry land 2:07 The oldest heart and the oldest live birth 2:56 The Bungle Bungles 4:13 Wolfe Creek Crater and the boabs 5:11 The wet and the dry 6:17 The flood that split the Kimberley 7:40 Tides higher than a house 8:40 46,000 years of people 9:43 Jandamarra 10:12 The great cattle drive 11:01 Pink diamonds 11:47 So why is it empty? Sources: Geoscience Australia; Curtin University (Kimberley Basin dating); WA Parks / DBCA (Purnululu, Windjana, Tunnel Creek, Geikie Gorge); Nature 2008 and Science 2022 (Gogo fossils); Bureau of Meteorology; Main Roads WA (Gibb River Road, Fitzroy River Bridge); NASA Earth Observatory; WA Government (Horizontal Falls); Science Advances 2020 (Gwion Gwion dating); Australian Dictionary of Biography (Jandamarra); Pastoral Lands Board WA; Rio Tinto (Argyle); ABS. #Australia #Kimberley #WesternAustralia