vegetation and the remains of animals were deposited onto different areas of the continent of Australia, areas that geologists call basins. These include the Galilee, Cooper and Bowen Basins in Queensland and the Sydney Basin in New South Wales (figure 2). It's likely that these basins were connected and, even as the floodwaters were rising, channeled huge volumes of water off the continent and into the ocean to the east. In Queensland and New South Wales these rocks have been classified as Permian and Triassic. Fig 3. Great Artesian Basin as floodwaters were peaking. As the floodwaters continued to rise and the crust of the earth continued to move tectonically, the positions of the sedimentary basins changed. This, coupled with rising floodwaters meant that sediment, vegetation and animals were deposited over a much larger series of basins covering a large part of Eastern Australia (figure 3). These sediments now contain the water reservoir known as the Great Artesian Basin (figure 4). These rocks have been classified as Jurassic and Cretaceous in Queensland and New South Wales. None of these large sedimentary basins is represented in Victoria. Fig 4. West-east cross section of Great Artesian Basin. Floodwaters peak Eventually the Floodwaters reached their peak. Then global large scale tectonic movements began to slowly lift the Australian continent relative to the surrounding ocean basins. This meant that the floodwaters started to flow off the continent into the oceans. They tended to move away from the middle of the continent toward the edges