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The Lake Ngapakaldi to Lake Palankarinna Fossil Area is a group of fossil sites located in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

within the

Tirari Desert The Tirari Desert is a desert in the eastern part of the Far North region of South Australia. It stretches 212 km from north to south and 153 km from east to west. Location and description The Tirari Desert features salt lakes and ...

in the north-eastern part of the state's Far North region. The group has an overall area of and is located about east of

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the ...

and about north-north-east of Marree, off the Birdsville Track near

Etadunna Station Etadunna is a pastoral lease in the Australian state of South Australia located in the gazetted locality of Etadunna and which is operating as a cattle station. In about 1867, German Lutheran missionaries J.F. Gossling and E. Homann, Brothe ...

Description

The area consists of four lakes grouped into two areas located about apart. They are surrounded by extensive areas of sand

dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

s in a flat, arid landscape. The lake beds are largely unvegetated and usually dry. Low cliffs on the western margins of the lakes have produced a variety of

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

fossils ranging in age from the late

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the ...

to the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Lakes Kununka, Ngapakaldi and Pitikanta

The following three lakes are located on the west side of the gazetted locality of Mulka with Lake Ngapakaldi being partly located within the locality of

: * Lake Kununka Rich ''et al''. (1982). * Lake Pitikanta * Lake Ngapakaldi

Lake Palankarinna

Lake Palankarinna is located in the gazetted locality of Etadunna on the west side of the Birdsville Track to the south of the other three sites. The lake is part of a reserve known as the ‘Lake Palankarinna Fossil Reserve’ which consists of part of the western half of the lake bed and a parcel of land to the west.

Status

The four sites are subject to a number of past and present heritage listings while one is located with a protected area: *All four sites were listed as one entity on the now-defunct

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

(No.5905) on 21 October 1980.Australian Heritage Database. *Lakes Kanunka, Pitikanta and Ngapakaldi has been listed as state heritage places on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

since 1997. *Lake Ngapakaldi is also partly located within the

Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre National Park (formerly Lake Eyre National Park) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia. It is located 697 km north of the state capital of Adelaide, Australia, Adelaide within the gazetted loca ...

. *Lake Palankarinna and some adjoining land has been gazetted since 1954 as a ‘fossil reserve’ under what is currently known as the ''Pastoral Land Management and Conservation Act 1989'' in order to “prevent the exploitation for profit of these areas by non-scientists.”Morton et al, 1995, page 96 The fossil reserve has also been listed as a ‘state heritage place’ since 1993.

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