Coffee rock is the common name for the rock-like formations of indurated sands that were formed from ancient river sediments of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

age.

Coffee rock has been exposed by coastal weathering process on the beaches of Broadwater and Bundjalung National Parks in New South Wales, Australia. In addition, exposures can be seen in

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its Tropical North Queensland, trop ...

, Australia at Kurrimine Beach, and in

South East Queensland South East Queensland (SEQ) is a Bioregion, bio-geographical, Megalopolis, metropolitan and Statistics, statistical Regions of Queensland, region of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland in Australia, with a population of ...

on K'gari and at the entry to Coonowrin Lake,

Caloundra Caloundra ( ) is a coastal town in the Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , the town of Caloundra had a population of 96,305 people. Geography Caloundra is north of the Brisbane central business district. Caloundra is acce ...

. Exposed Coffee Rock on the beaches K'gari is more likely the beds of old lakes in the sand dunes when the sea level was lower. In places it is peat-like and embedded with wood ranging from small twigs to large tree trunks up to 1200mm in diameter, with some evidence of fire on the wood before being assembled.

References

* National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW: ''Broadwater National Park, Bundjalung National Park and Iluka Nature Reserve - Plan of Management''. Sydney, August 1997. {{ISBN, 0-7310-7655-9 Sandstone in Australia Geology of Queensland Pleistocene