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Ediacara Hills

Australia / South Australia / Port Augusta /
 ridge, interesting place, paleontological site
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Ediacara Hills are a range of low hills in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, around 650 km north of Adelaide. The area has many old copper and silver mines from mining activity in the late 19th century. The hills also contain fossils of early multicellular life forms, the Ediacaran biota (lagerstätte), and have given their name to the Ediacaran geological period.

The name "Ediacara" has a disputed origin from one of the Aboriginal languages near the Flinders Range area. The earlier sources suggested that the "name ‘Ediacara’ or ‘Idiyakra’ is derived from an Indigenous term linking it to a place near water". However, "recent linguistic research has suggested that the term may be a mispronunciation of the two words ‘Yata Takarra’ meaning hard or stony ground in reference to the flat Ediacara plateau of dolostone that forms the centre of the Ediacara syncline." Supporting this latter contention, it has been argued that the word "has nothing in it that corresponds to any word for water in any of the local languages" and that local tradition "has it that the name meant "granite plain", but, since there appears to be no igneous rock in the area, this could well refer to the hardness of the ground, rather than to its geological composition."
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ediacara_Hills
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   29°54'36"S   138°48'32"E

Comments

  • kencummings
    The Ediacaran Era immediately preceeds the Cambrian.
This article was last modified 13 years ago