__NOTOC__ Nilpena Ediacara National Park, which includes the former Ediacara Conservation Park, is a

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

located in the northern

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain ranges in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhab ...

, in the state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It is located about around north of the city of Adelaide, around south-west of the town of Leigh Creek in the state's Far North. The

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

, which includes the

Ediacara Hills Ediacara Hills ( ), also known as Ediacaran Hills, are a range of low hills in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, around north of the state capital of Adelaide city centre, Adelaide. They are within the Nilpena Ediaca ...

and covers , was proclaimed in June 2021, and opened in April 2023. It is famous for its fossil beds, and of major significance to the bid for UNESCO

World Heritage List World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritag ...

ing for the

History

Fossils

Dickinsonia observed in situ at Nilpena Ediacara National Park

Geologist

Reg Sprigg Reginald Claude Sprigg (1 March 1919 – 2 December 1994) was an Australian geologist and conservationist.Keeling, J.L. and Hore, S.BDr R C Sprigg – Contributions to geology and insights into landscape evolution Geological Society of Austral ...

discovered fossils in the

in 1946. The first evidence of an animal with a head was among these fossils, and is unique to the

. It was named

Spriggina ''Spriggina'' is a genus of early animals whose relationship to living animals is unclear. Fossils of ''Spriggina'' are known from the late Ediacaran period in what is now South Australia. ''Spriggina floundersi'' is the official fossil emblem o ...

, after Sprigg. There is a theory that ''Ediacara'' is derived from the

Adnyamathanha language The Adnyamathanha language (pronounced ), also known as yura ngarwala natively and Kuyani, also known as Guyani and other variants, are two closely related Australian Aboriginal languages. They are traditional languages of the Adnyamathanha of ...

name "''Ithiaka-na-danha'', where ''Ithi'' means

zebra finch The zebra finches are two species of estrildid finch in the genus ''Taeniopygia'' found in Australia and Indonesia. They are seed-eaters that travel in large flocks. Species The species are: Previously, both species were classified as ...

and ''aka – na-danha'' means "to come out", which is used as the name for the area in which the conservation park was located. However, there are also other theories as to its origin. American palaeontologist

Mary L. Droser Mary L. Droser is an American paleontologist. She is known for her work in South Australia, including the discovery of several fossils to which she had naming rights. , she is part of a team preparing the nomination of the Flinders Ranges as a W ...

and her family have travelled frequently from their home near

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

to study the fossils on property that was part of

Nilpena Station Nilpena Station is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station (formerly a sheep station) in the northern Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Ediacaran fossils were discovered on the station in 1985, and in 2016, two-thirds of the ...

, from around 2001 onwards.

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultur ...

palaeontologist Diego Garcia-Bellido and his team has also been studying the fossils, and hopes that cores extracted by them will reveal the exact age of the fossils by around 2026. The fossils are of international significance, being the most extensive examples of Ediacaran fossils in the world, although others exist in other places, including

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. While it is possible to observe these fossils on site, this can only be done through a guided "Fossil Field Exploration Tour", which runs several days a week during the cooler months of the year.

Conservation park

The Ediacara Conservation Park was proclaimed under the ''

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972 Protected areas of South Australia, consisting of protected areas located within South Australia and its immediate onshore waters and which are managed by South Australian Government agencies. As of 2018, South Australia contained 359 separat ...

'' on 26 April 2007 over land previously declared as a conservation reserve under the ''Crown Lands Act 1929'' in 1993 and as a

fossil reserve Following is a list of protected areas where fossils are preserved, known as fossil parks or fossil reserves, worldwide by country. Africa Egypt Wadi Al-Hitan - Valley of The Whales, Fayyoum, Western Desert South Africa West Coast Fossil Park ...

in 1958. In 2016, the

Government of South Australia The Government of South Australia, also referred to as the South Australian Government or the SA Government, is the executive branch of the state government, state of South Australia. It is modelled on the Westminster system, meaning that the h ...

purchased two-thirds of

from the Fargher family. It is on this land that some valuable fossils were found.

National park

On 28 March 2019, the government purchased of adjacent land, to enlarge the conservation park by ten times. The land, formerly owned by the Nilpena Pastoral Company, extends as far as

Lake Torrens National Park Lake Torrens National Park is a protected area located in South Australia about north of the Adelaide city centre. Material published by the national park's manager reports that: The stark wilderness and the salt lake that stretches 250km in ...

. The entire area was reclassified and proclaimed as Nilpena Ediacara National Park on 17 June 2021. A visitor hub and Ediacara Fossil experience were planned and development started in 2021. The

was opened on 27 April 2023.

Description

Fossil bed at Nilpena Ediacara National Park

The national park lies around north of the city of Adelaide, to the east of

, about and south-west of the town of Leigh Creek. The conservation park was originally created to protect and conserve an "assemblage of fossilised Ediacaran soft-bodied marine organisms of international importance," "places of significance" to the

Adnyamathanha The Adnyamathanha (Pronounced: ) are a contemporarily formed grouping of several distinct Aboriginal Australian peoples of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. The ethnonym Adnyamathanha was an alternative name for the Wailpi but th ...

people, "remnants of mining history associated with the Ediacara mineral field," and an "important

chenopod Amaranthaceae ( ) is a family of flowering plants commonly known as the amaranth family, in reference to its type genus ''Amaranthus''. It includes the former goosefoot family Chenopodiaceae and contains about 165 genera and 2,040 species, making ...

habitat." It was classified as an

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

Category VI protected area. The fossil reserve is also listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

. Since its opening as a national park in April 2023, Ross and Jane Fargher, who have been working with Jason Irving, head of the national parks program, for seven years, are acting as caretakers of the fossil beds until a ranger is appointed. The park is major significance to the bid for

ing for the

, which were placed on the tentative list in April 2021. Research by Droser and Garcia-Bellido will be included in the dossier that will be submitted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage nomination, which will be voted on in 2026.

References

External links

*
Ediacara
on

Protected Planet The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) is the largest assembly of data on the world's terrestrial and marine protected areas, containing more than 260,000 protected areas as of August 2020, with records covering 245 countries and territori ...

{{Protected areas of South Australia , state=collapsed Protected areas established in 1993 1993 establishments in Australia Fossil parks in Australia Far North (South Australia) Flinders Ranges National parks of South Australia