Address & Contact
Tunnel Creek National Park
Western Australia 6728
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A 'Great Barrier Reef' fringed an ancient
Kimberley land mass during the Devonian period, between 375 and 350 million years ago, when a tropical sea filled the Canning and Bonaparte Basins. Remnants of the reef are preserved in the West
Kimberley as ranges of low, rugged hills extending for 300 kilometres. The reef probably extended for more than 1000 kilometres around the seaward margin of the
Kimberley and is also seen north of
Kununurra, where it forms the Ningbing Range.
The structure was built by lime-secreting organisms, mainly calcareous algae and extinct coral-like organisms called stromatoporoids. Though corals were present, they were much less important in reef-building than the corals of modern times. Gastropods, brachiopods, bivalves and
stromatolites were also present in and around the reef.
The ancient reef now forms a chain of often steep-sided, low
limestone ranges, up to 300 metres above sea level, which rise from 40 to 150 metres above the surrounding
Fitzroy River floodplain. Boab trees often grow on the rocky hillsides.