| LOCATION |
| Map |
Show Map
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| Address |
Clifftop Crescent HALLETT COVE |
| Locality |
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| Accuracy |
L - low level confidence |
| Council Area |
Marion Council |
| Polygon Type |
B - Building footprint |
| DESCRIPTION |
| Details (Known As) |
Hallett Cove Conservation Park & Sandison Reserve [Designated place of geological significance] |
| Registered Name |
Hallett Cove Conservation Park & Sandison Reserve |
| Significance |
Rock formations at Hallett Cove provide outstanding evidence of the late Palaeozoic (280 million years old) glaciation of southern Australia, which has world-wide significance. The smoothed and striated cliff top glacial pavements, discovered by Professor Ralph Tate in 1877, are considered to be the finest of their type and amongst the best in the world. Inland from the glacial pavements on the plateau are crude stone implements attributed to the ancient Kartan culture. This vast Aboriginal camping ground provides important evidence of the first occupants of the Adelaide region, who may have arrived as early as 40,000 years ago. Validated: 6/03/2000
STATEMENT OF GEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Hallett Cove Conservation Park & Sandison Reserve displays a detailed and exceptionally high quality geological record of South Australia, imparting important insights about the State's geological history. The Park and Reserve yields evidence of significant glaciations of worldwide significance, recording approximately 645 million years of geological history. It also contains fossiliferous deposits and geologically significant unconformities.
Hallett Cove Conservation Park & Sandison Reserve demonstrates four separate periods of glacial activity within one site, a combination that is not seen anywhere else in Australia. Overall, the site's extensive geological evidence for glaciation is considered among the best in the world. Significant feature include:
* striations and cuts within smooth-topped rocks at Black Cliff created by glacier movements approximately 280Ma (Million Years ago),
* a glacial lake formed by a 280 million year old glacier where silt deposition has created distinctive multi-coloured layering patterns denoting the depositional environment,
* large `erratics' or `dropstones', rocks dropped from melting sheets of ice, believed to originate from Encounter Bay,
* glacial sediment deposit illustrating ripples and wave patterns that are preserved within the rock. While of a similar age to the other deposits, it demonstrates a higher energy depositional environment.
Additionally, the depositional patterns at Hallett Cove Conservation Park & Sandison Reserve infer detailed, cycling changes in sea level, as illustrated by the abundant shelly fossil deposits including both impressions of and physical shellsii at the top of the cliffs surrounding the beach. The sandstone matrix also denotes a warm and shallow environmentiv that was deposited only 3Ma.
The area also shows evidence of unconformities, examples of periods of erosion or breaks in deposition in the geological recordv. For example, along Waterfall Creek a missing time period of approximately 320Ma is exposed, while just above it is an example of a missing period from 277Ma, with a third unconformity showing the absence of another 1 million years of sediment. As such, a succession of environmental changes across approximately 600 million years can be seen within the one cliff-face. |
| Subject Index |
Landscape area - Geological Site; Landscape area - Natural Landscape |
| Class |
State |
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| STATUS |
| Status Code |
REG - Confirmed as a State Heritage Place in the SA Heritage Register |
| Status Date |
04-MAR-1993 |
| REFERENCE |
| LGA |
Marion |
| State Heritage ID |
14033 |
| Heritage Number |
4368 |
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| SECTION 16 INFORMATION |
| Section 16 |
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| PLAN PARCEL & TITLE |
| As listed in the SA Heritage Register |
| Plan Parcel & Title Information |
CR 5428/687 H105500 S1577,CT 5546/805 F148355 A17,CR 5772/819 H105500 S1550,CR 5361/119 D2387 A1,CR 5361/120 D2387 A2,CR 5772/819 F28675 A20;21 |