Qualla: Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:33:41 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback: Introduction https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland/ Photo credit Public domain. The rocks around Georgetown do not belong to Australia. They match the rocks of northern Canada, not the rest of the continent, and geologists at Curtin University have made the case that 1.7 billion years ago this very ground was part of North America - that it broke away, drifted, and slammed into the edge of what is now Queensland near Mount Isa, helping to assemble the ancient supercontinent of Nuna. Sit with that for a moment in a town of about 254 people, baking on the Gulf Developmental Road. The frost that occasionally whitens Georgetown's winter mornings - this is among the most northerly places in Australia to record frost - is the least surprising thing about the place. The most surprising is that you are standing on a stray piece of another continent, parked here for the better part of two billion years.

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/rhwp-georgetown-the-piece-of-north-america-in-the-outba-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback: Ewamian Country https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland/ Photo credit Public domain. Long before the geologists arrived with their theories, and long before the gold, this was - and remains - the country of the Ewamian people, the traditional owners of the land around Georgetown. Their connection to this part of the Gulf Savannah runs deep into the same deep time...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/rhwp-georgetown-the-piece-of-north-america-in-the-outba-ewamian-country.mp3 0:06 2 full Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback: A Gold Commissioner's Name https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland/ Photo credit Public domain. The European town was born of a gold rush on the Etheridge River in the 1870s, established right on the site of the diggings. At first it was simply called Etheridge, after the river and the field. In 1871 the name changed to Georgetown, in honour of Howard St George, an early go...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/rhwp-georgetown-the-piece-of-north-america-in-the-outba-a-gold-commissioners-name.mp3 0:06 3 full Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback: The Terrestrial Centre https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland/ Photo credit Contributor(s): North Queensland register, Public domain. For a town this size to hold a world-class mineral collection is improbable, and Georgetown holds one anyway. The Terrestrial Information Centre houses the Ted Elliot Mineral Collection - more than 4,500 mineral specimens, gathered from across the local district and around the wo...

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Image: Contributor(s): North Queensland register | Public domain

]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/rhwp-georgetown-the-piece-of-north-america-in-the-outba-the-terrestrial-centre.mp3 0:06 4 full Georgetown: The Piece of North America in the Outback: The Cumberland Chimney https://qualla.com/georgetown-queensland/ Photo credit JennyMacKay, CC BY-SA 4.0. About 20 kilometres west of Georgetown, a single square brick chimney stands alone on the plain - all that remains of the town of Cumberland, once among the largest and most productive gold mines on the Etheridge field. Gold was found here in 1872, and at its peak in the 1880s Cu...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/h/w/p/georgetown-queensland-wp/rhwp-georgetown-the-piece-of-north-america-in-the-outba-the-cumberland-chimney.mp3 0:06 5 full