Merri Creek

Merri Creek
The Merri Creek passing through Fairfield and Clifton Hill with Melbourne city skyline in the distance.
Country	Australia
Basin
Basin size	Unknown
Physical characteristics
Length	70 km (43 mi)

Coordinates: 37°45′35″S 144°58′53″E / 37.759756°S 144.981482°E / -37.759756; 144.981482 The Merri Creek is a waterway in southern parts of Victoria, Australia, which flows through the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It begins near Wallan north of Melbourne and flows south for 70 km until it joins the Yarra River at Dights Falls. The area where the creek meets the river was traditionally the location for large gatherings of the Wurundjeri people and is suspected to have been the location for one of the earliest land treaties in Australia between Indigenous Australians and European settlers.

The creek was the site of heavy industrial use throughout much of the 20th century, being home to quarries, landfills and accepting waste runoff from neighbouring factories. This has degraded the riparian ecology of the creek leaving behind pollutants such as heavy metals and various greases. Recent decades have seen some regenerative planting and the foundation of several community groups dedicated to protecting and regenerating the creek's ecology.

The creek borrows its name from the Wurundjeri-willam phrase Merri Merri meaning "very rocky", this was later abbreviated to Merri Creek by early European settlers.

Over 400 million years ago the sea covering the area receded. It left behind a layer of yellowish marine siltstone and sandstone rocks. Around 66 million years ago non-marine sediments left a sandy layer behind. Over time the ancestral valley of the Merri Creek developed, eroding through these sediments. Then, from 4.6 to 0.8 million years ago volcanoes such as Hayes Hill (about 5 km east of Donnybrook) and Mt Fraser (near Beveridge) erupted, sending lava on a journey along the ancestral valleys of the Merri and Darebin Creeks and into the valley of the Yarra River as far as the CBD.