Naracoorte Caves National Park
Encyclopedia
Naracoorte Caves is a national park near Naracoorte in the Limestone Coast
Limestone Coast
The Limestone Coast is a name used since the early twentyfirst century for the geographical region and tourist region of the southeast coast of South Australia from the Victoria border to the towards the city of Adelaide.-Location and description:...
tourism region
Tourism region
A tourism region is a geographical region that has been designated by a governmental organization or tourism bureau as having common cultural or environmental characteristics. These regions are often named after historical or current administrative and geographical regions. Others have names...
in the south-east of South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
(Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
). It was officially recognised in 1994 for its extensive fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
record when the site was inscribed on the World Heritage List, along with Riversleigh
Riversleigh
Riversleigh, in North West Queensland, is Australia's most famous fossil site. The 100 km² area has fossil remains of ancient mammals, birds and reptiles of Oligocene and Miocene age...
. The park preserves 6 km² of remnant vegetation, with 26 caves contained within the 3.05 km² World Heritage Area.
The park is a visitor destination in itself, with a camping ground and caravan park, dormitory accommodation for groups, picnic grounds and a licenced cafe. The range of visitor activities is extensive. Show cave tours are guided by professional interpreters through highly decorated caves with some tours visiting amazing fossil deposits. Modern technology has been utilised to show visitors the normally inaccessible interior of Bat Cave, where thousands of bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s breed each year. Other opportunities include adventure caving, a selection of specialty tours and special events.
The limestone of the area was formed from coral and marine creatures 200 million years ago and again 20 million years ago when the land was below sea level. Ground water since then has dissolved and eroded some of the limestone, creating the caves. The caves, such as the Victoria Fossil Cave and Blanche Cave
Blanche Cave
Blanche Cave, previously known as "The Big Cave", "The Old Cave" and "Mosquito Plains Cave", is one of 26 caves to be found in the Naracoorte Caves National Park, a World Heritage listed site...
, are often not far below ground, and holes open up creating traps for the unwary. This is the source of the remarkable collection of fossils. Mammals and other land creatures have fallen into open caves and been unable to escape. The fossil record has been preserved in strata formed from eroded topsoil washed and blown in. In some places, the fossil-bearing silt is up to 20 metres thick. Some of these areas are being preserved for future research when better methods of dating and reconstructing fossil records may have been found. These fossil traps are especially significant for tracing Australian megafauna
Australian megafauna
Australian megafauna are a number of large animal species in Australia, often defined as species with body mass estimates of greater than 30 kilograms, or equal to or greater than 30% greater body mass than their closest living relatives...
.
See also
- Protected areas of South AustraliaProtected areas of South AustraliaSouth Australia contains 324 separate Protected Areas with a total land area of 216,310 km² . Eighteen of these areas are National parks, totalling 43,374 km² .-Conservation Parks:...
- Marsupial LionMarsupial LionThe Marsupial Lion is an extinct species of carnivorous marsupial mammal that lived in Australia from the early to the late Pleistocene...
- RiversleighRiversleighRiversleigh, in North West Queensland, is Australia's most famous fossil site. The 100 km² area has fossil remains of ancient mammals, birds and reptiles of Oligocene and Miocene age...