Wave Rock is a natural rock formation located east of the small town of Hyden

Hyden, Western Australia

The town of Hyden is located 339 km east of Perth, Western Australia in the Shire of Kondinin. Hyden is home to Wave Rock and Mulka's Cave, both popular local tourist attractions....

 in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 that is shaped like a tall breaking ocean wave.

Wave Rock has cultural significance to Aborigines

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

. More than 140,000 tourists visit wave rock every year.

A retaining wall about halfway up the rock that follows the contours of the wall and allows rainwater to be collected in a storage dam was constructed in 1951 by the Public Works Department

Public Works Department (Western Australia)

-History:The Public Works Department is a now defunct government of Western Australia which was charged with providing and maintaining public infrastructure such as dams, water supplies, schools, hospitals, harbours and other public buildings....

. Such walls are common on many similar rocks in the Wheatbelt.

Geology

Wave Rock, more than 2.7 billion years old, is composed of granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 and has been shaped by chemical weathering. The total outcrop covers several hectares and is part of the Hyden Rock erosional remnant. The "wave" part of the rock is about 14 m (47 ft) high and around 110 m (350 ft) long. The 'wave' formation was formed 60 million years ago by subsurface chemical weathering followed by removal of the soft weathered granite by fluvial

Fluvial

Fluvial is used in geography and Earth science to refer to the processes associated with rivers and streams and the deposits and landforms created by them...

 erosion

Erosion

Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...

, thus the weathering occurred below ground level before it was exposed. The end result is an undercut base, leaving a round overhang.

Nearby features

Other notable rock formations in the area include Hippos Yawn and The Humps

Hyden Humps Dam

Hyden Humps Dam is situated approximately twenty kilometres north of Hyden, Western Australia.The dam is filled with rainwater runoff which is channeled off the Humps mountain....

.

In popular culture

The site of Wave Rock was used as a backdrop for an episode of Japan's Next Top Model in 2008. It featured some comedic bloopers containing an inebriated Australian attempting to run up the course of the rock.

In the game show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?", one of the episodes, featured the theft of Wave rock.

Wave Rock Music Festival

Wave Rock hosts the nearby Wave Rock Weekender event, a music festival held once a year. Last year the event was held from the 25-26 September 2010.

See also

• The Wave, Arizona
  The Wave, Arizona
  The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located in the United States of America near the Arizona and Utah border on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes, in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, on the Colorado Plateau...
  
  - similar rock formation in the United States.