The South Australian outback has a new national park containing the oldest animal fossils on Earth.

Picture: Jason Irving.

The new Nilpena Ediacara National Park will replace the existing Ediacara National Conservation Park by adding nearly 60,000 hectares of extra protected land, which is equivalent to the size of Luxemburg.

The 60,000-hectare (150,000 acre) Nilpena property is located 600 km north of the South Australian capital Adelaide and is situated west of Blackfellows Creek.

The expansion will make Nilpena the new home of the world-renowned Ediacaran fossils which provides an understanding of the early evolution of complex life on earth.

Since the first fossil imprints were found in the area in 1946, palaeontologists and other researchers have been able to excavate a series of 40 fossiliferous beds that preserve snapshots of the seafloor when animal life originally unfolded around 550 million years ago.

The area is the only place on Earth where this has occurred for fossils of any age.

Nilpena fossil beds preserve marine communities with scores of species. They include evidence of animals and the earliest movement and sexual reproduction.

The site is located on the edge of the 540-million-year-old Flinders Ranges, one of the oldest landscapes on earth.

NASA has invested research into the Flinders Ranges facility for an insight into how animal life has evolved on the planet and how life could develop on other planets.

The added area of Nilpena will also provide a space for research and visitor facilities and an immersive interpretive centre.

South Australian Minister for Environment and Water David Speirs said the new national park is a major part of the South Australian government’s push have the Flinders Ranges become World Heritage listed.

“The fossil site at Nilpena – arguably the richest and most intact fossil site in the world – is an internationally significant paleontological and geological research site,” Minister Speirs said.

The Government signed a historic agreement to conserve South Australia’s Ediacaran fossils in the Flinders Ranges.

“This agreement saw the South Australian Government partner with the Flinders Ranges Ediacara Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, the Wyss Foundation and the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife to purchase 60,000 hectares of Nilpena Station with this land being added to the existing Ediacara Conservation Park to form the new national park, ” he said.

The Nilpena Ediacara National Park will provide further protection to the globally significant fossils and one of the world’s most important historic sites.

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