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South Australia's fossil-rich Flinders Ranges has been nominated for a tentative listing as a World Heritage site, on behalf of the South Australian Government and the area's traditional owners, the Adnyamathanha people.

The Flinders Ranges geological successions represent an extraordinary window into the major stage in Earth’s history described as the “dawn of animal life”. The sites present a geological record of Earth’s wildly fluctuating climate conditions and environments over a period of 350 million years that evidences the special habitable conditions on Earth that gave rise to animal life.

Lead authors for the nomination document visited a number of key sites with the aim of the visit to examine the scientific values of the proposed World Heritage sites in the Flinders Ranges, including those along the Brachina Geological Trail and in Nilpena Ediacara National Park.

Home to significant fossil deposits, the region was dubbed "one great outdoor museum" by 20th-Century explorer and geologist Douglas Mawson.

The group of lead authors includes internationally renowned professor and palaeontologist Professor Mary Droser from the University of Southern California who told the BBC “there are places that have parts of the story, and there are places with phenomenal fossils, but the Flinders has this complete packaging that is really accessible. We can go back in time and see how life unfolded. The record is unparalleled.”

South Australian Environment Minister Susan Close advised "more than 600 million years old, the Flinders Ranges is one of Australia's magnificent landscapes. The fossils and geology of the region are particularly fascinating, displaying the history of our planet and the evolution of life on Earth.

"Some of this critical evidence includes the world's finest example of the Ediacaran explosion of life when the earliest forms of complex multicellular animal life evolved."

As part of the heritage process, the bid team met with the locals from the ex-copper mining town of Blinman, some 425 kilometres north of Adelaide, to discuss the potential heritage listing.

The group also plans to tour Arkaroola and Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park next month.

The assessment process is expected to take at least another two years before the Flinders Ranges could be added to the World Heritage List in 2025 at the earliest.

Upgrades to visitor facilities along the Brachina Geological Trail are already underway.

World Heritage listing is coordinated by UNESCO through the World Heritage Centre, with independent evaluations and recommendations to the World Heritage Committee about whether a nomination should be included.

Image: Lead authors visit Flinders Ranges to progress World Heritage Bid. Credit: South Australian Department for Environment and Water 

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