Naracoote Caves National Park
Naracoote Caves National Park
Naracoote Caves National Park
Narracoorte Caves National Park is a national park near Narracoorte in South Australia's south-eastern Limestone Coast tourist region.
Worsley. The 26-cave park protects 6 km2 of remaining vegetation within a 3.05 km2 World Heritage site. Of the 28 known caves in the park, only four are open to the public.
Other caves are kept away from the public because they are important for scientific research and the preservation of the caves and their contents. Many of the caves contain spectacular stalactites and stalagmites.
European invention
Located within the boundaries of the present national park, these caves were first encountered in 1845 with the discovery of Blanche Cave. Narakure Forest Reserve
In 1885, the Woods and Forests Department appointed a caretaker because of the "popularity of the caves and the possibility of destruction".
National Pleasure Resort.
In 1916, the control of the portion of the forest reserve, which consisted of several caves and covered 20 hectares (50 acres) of land, was transferred from the Department of Woods and Forests to the Immigration, Publicity and Tourist Bureau.
It was managed as a National Pleasure Resort till 1972 under the National Pleasure Resort Act of 1914. The change of regulation was gazetted on 1 March 1917. "The discovery in Victoria in 1969 was instrumental in the development of a major regional tourist attraction. The largest known Australian Pleistocene vertebrate fossil cave deposit".
Conservation Park
On 27 April 1972, the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 was passed and renamed Narracoote Caves Conservation Park. It repealed the previous law along with other laws related to conversion. In 1982, the now defunct estate was listed as a conservation park.
World Heritage List
On 17 December 1994, it was inscribed on the "World Heritage List" along with the Riverseag Fossil Site in Queensland as Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Narracoort) as part of a conservation park covering 300 hectares (740 acres).
National park
On 18 January 2001 Naracoote Caves Conservation Park was abolished and the land it occupied restored as a national park, as it was deemed and named "of national importance due to the natural features of the land". Naracoote Caves National Park.
National Heritage List
The Australian Fossil Mammal Sites are one of 15 World Heritage Sites added to the Australian National Heritage List on 21 May 2007.
State Heritage List On 17 May 2017, an extent of the national park was listed on the South Australian Heritage Register as a State Heritage Site under the name Narracoort Cave Complex.
Visitor attraction
The park is a visitor center with a camping ground and caravan park, dormitory accommodation for groups, picnic grounds and a licensed cafe. The range of visitor activities is very extensive. Show cave tours are led by professional interpreters through highly decorated caves with some tours visiting amazing fossil deposits. Modern technology was used to show visitors the interior of the Bat Cave, where thousands of southern curved-winged bats breed each year. Other opportunities include adventure caving, specialty tours, and special events. The Wonambi Fossil Center, the park's visitor center, features exhibits of fossils and bones found in caves and dioramas of extinct animals.
Structure
The limestone in this area was formed from coral reefs and marine life 200 million years ago, and again 20 million years ago when it was below sea level. Since then, groundwater has dissolved and eroded some of the limestone, creating caves.
Caves such as Victoria Fossil Cave and Blanche Cave are often not far below the ground, and open holes create traps for the unwary. This is the source of an impressive collection of fossils. Mammals and other terrestrial creatures fell into open caves and were unable to escape.
Fossil records are preserved in layers that have been washed away and blown away by eroded topsoil. Some of these areas are preserved for future research while better methods of dating and reconstructing the fossil record are discovered.
These fossil traps are particularly important for detecting Australian megafauna.
Latest research
The formation date of the caves is pushed back to at least 1.34 million years ago.
Article prepared by Rengith Mathew