Research / Index

Field sites

Weathered Hawkesbury Sandstone in situ, Sydney.01

Tafoni

The honeycomb coast

Hawkesbury Sandstone

Middle Triassic · ~240 Ma

Wedding Cake Rock, Royal National Park.02

Honeycomb Lace

Wedding Cake Rock and the white cliffs

Hawkesbury Sandstone

Middle Triassic · ~240 Ma

Wave Rock, the flared north face of Hyden Rock.03

Wave Rock

A granite breaker, frozen mid-curl

Porphyritic monzogranite

Archaean · 2.63 Ga

The Pinnacles in the evening sun, September 2023.04

The Pinnacles

A forest of limestone, dated

Tamala Limestone

Pleistocene · formed ≈ 102 ka

Remarkable Rocks, Flinders Chase National Park.05

Remarkable Rocks

Granite hollowed by the Southern Ocean

Granite (mica, quartz, feldspar)

Cambro-Ordovician · ~500 Ma

Nature's Window, Kalbarri National Park.06

Nature's Window

Where animals first walked on land

Tumblagooda Sandstone

Silurian? · ~400–430 Ma

The Twelve Apostles, Port Campbell National Park.07

Twelve Apostles

Limestone stacks in retreat

Port Campbell Limestone

Mid–Late Miocene · ~15–5 Ma

Beehive domes of the Bungle Bungle Range.08

Bungle Bungle

Beehive domes painted by bacteria

Devonian sandstone

Devonian · eroded over ~20 Myr

The Organ Pipes, Jacksons Creek, Victoria.09

Organ Pipes

Lava that cracked into hexagons

Basalt (Newer Volcanics)

~2.5–2.8 Ma

Index / All formations

Formations under study

Nine field sites across the continent. Each is scanned, sectioned and simulated over one full season.