Flinders Ranges

The ranges contain Ediacara fauna, which is an assemblage of fossilized from the Precambrian period. The Flinders Ranges began forming about 800 million years ago, when an ancient sea deposited sediments in a basin named Adelaide Geosyncline. Around 300 million years later, the basin sediments were folded into mountains during a mountain-building period. The mountains have since eroded.

The Flinders Ranges National Park was officially renamed today to incorporate the traditional Aboriginal name of the area. The park was renamed Ikara - Flinders Ranges National Park, incorporating the Adnyamathanha word 'Ikara' which is their name for Wilpena Pound and broadly means 'meeting place'.The name Wilpena is from an Aboriginal word meaning bent fingers, which describes the shape of the range. According to the tradition of the Adnyamathanha people, the indigenous inhabitants of this part of South Australia, Wilpena Pound was formed when two Dreamtime serpents travelled south and carved the landscape in their wake.