You can see the traces of sea in the barrier reefs and the various sand ripples in the rocks along Arkaroola Creek. But it is impossibly hard to visualize the Adelaide Rift Complex let alone its deep time history.

It is a significant geological area as this part of the “Adelaide Rift Complex” hosts an essentially continuous 350 million year record of changing climates and depositional environments on Earth from 850 million years to 500 million years ago.

This a major stage in Earth’s history is recognised as the “dawn of animal life” and the region is significant because, arguably, it preserves the most complete record of habitable Earth phenomena that primed our planet for animal life. 

Deep time, abstraction and photography that was the concept.

Maybe deep time is the wrong concept as it suggests an archaeological metaphor, equating antiquity with vertical depth, and suggesting that the ancient past is somehow buried within the earth. Its not hidden: the history is all on the surface. Maybe long time is better to refer to  the millions of years in the before humans stepped foot on the earth in the Vulkathunha-Gammon Ranges National Park?

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