Naracoorte Caves: World’s Best Fossil Sites Located in Australia Dating Back to 500,000 Years Ago

One of the world's largest stalagmites dominates the main chamber of the Cathedral Cave near Wellington on May 30, 2009. The limestone formation known as The Altar is 15 metres high, has a circumference of 32 metres, and is believed to be over 370,000 years old.
(Photo : Photo credit should read TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP via Getty Images)

The Naracoorte Caves in South Australia represent one of the globe's highest archaeological repositories, with a data base dating back more than 500,000 years back.

World's Best Fossil Sites

The skeleton remains of numerous instantly recognizable Australian megafauna creatures that lived millions of years ago approximately 48,000 and 37,000 years earlier are some of the remnants deposited in weathered material.

The causes of the extinction of these megafauna animals are hotly discussed. However, the closer in age the remains discovered, the more researchers could further comprehend the development as well as demise of the creature, as per The Conversation.

Since it has been impossible to determine the exact antiquity of the caves to today. The investigation, on the other hand, shows for the inaugural instance how old Naracoorte's caverns are - and the response is up to 500,000 years more than initially realized.

The remnants of legendary megafauna include the Carnifex thylacoleo (marsupial predator), Trilobus Zygomaturus (huge herbivore), Naracoortensis wonambi (giant constrictor snake), as well as the Procoptodon goliah (browsing sthenurine kangaroo).

Furthermore, As shown in the study published under Science Direct, researchers discovered that the caverns formed at least 1.34 million years back, continuing to make them 250,000 to 500,000 years ancient than prior estimations. This means that the caverns may contain intriguing research animal relic evidence dating back up to 600,000 years - more than 100,000 years of age than the complex's earliest documented paleontological occurrences.

This novel method may assist to explain how ancient fossil collections form in various cave systems in Australia as well as across planet that include combined speleothems plus animal remains.

Mentioned at the Quaternary Science Reviews, these discoveries will therefore assist biologists in locating prospective archaeological dig locations in search of old aged remains, perhaps offering crucial supplementary scientific proof of how the country's entire distinctive species complexity has altered. When speleothems develop, they contain trace levels of uranium, a radioactive substance.

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The Naracoorte Caves in Australia

Since speleothems begin to develop after a subterranean hole is established and rise beyond the water levels, as per Newsbreak, the earliest speleothem age reflects the cave's threshold. Researchers discovered that pollen as well as charcoal initially emerged in the caverns approximately 600,000 years previously.

Exceptional locations like the Naracoorte Caves assist researchers in comprehending not only the ways global warming has affected quality of the environment in the ancient times, in addition to what could take place in the future, Flipboard noted. Caves may be wonderful historical chambers, retaining in great precision the remnants of thought to be gone greenery as well as creatures.

Researchers utilized a chronology approach that entailed looking at the lovely calcite structures from within the caves. They were originally estimated to be between 0.8 and 1.1 million years old, based on the age of a prehistoric dune crest that sits well over the cave complex, The Science Times recently updated.

Several of these relic layers have been unearthed as well as documented, and the remains of some megafauna creatures have been rebuilt. This throws fresh insight on the large latency period among geomorphologic evolution and relic accumulation. Therefore, despite the fact that the Naracoorte Caves were created at least 1.34 million years ago, they were not exposed to the ground until 600,000 years in the past, Headtopics reported.

Surface water seeped down fractures in limestone rocks, eroding them and creating voids. The report's detailed labor took half a decade, nevertheless it was well worthwhile the effort. The phase 2 of the research looked at when the caverns initially rose up to the open, enabling air and creatures to enter.