The Oldest Cave in The World + 2 Other Oddities in Australia

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#cave #pinnacles #glasshousemountains
Join us on a breathtaking journey through deep time as we explore three of Australia’s most fascinating geological wonders—each one a natural masterpiece shaped by Earth’s most powerful forces over hundreds of millions of years. This video uncovers the hidden stories behind the Jenolan Caves, the Pinnacles Desert, and the Glass House Mountains, revealing how water, wind, and magma created some of the most visually striking and scientifically significant landscapes in the Southern Hemisphere.

We begin in New South Wales at the Jenolan Caves, one of the oldest cave systems on the planet. These extraordinary limestone caves are estimated to be over 340 million years old, making them older than the dinosaurs and predating even the supercontinent Pangaea. Formed within marine carbonate sediments that date back to the Silurian Period, the Jenolan system began as small fractures in the bedrock through which mildly acidic groundwater flowed. Over unimaginable spans of time, this water gradually dissolved the rock, hollowing out vast subterranean chambers and narrow passageways. As the landscape above changed and eroded, the caves below were modified through multiple phases of collapse and reactivation. Today, they contain an incredible array of speleothems—stalactites, stalagmites, shawls, and flowstones—each formed drop by drop from mineral-rich water. The video examines how the caves’ age was determined through radiometric dating of cave sediments, and how they serve as a priceless geological archive of changing climates and tectonic movements over the last third of a billion years.

Next, we travel to the Pinnacles Desert in Western Australia’s Nambung National Park, where thousands of jagged limestone pillars rise from the desert floor like ancient stone sentinels. These formations are part of a unique desert karst landscape formed during the Quaternary period, possibly within the last 500,000 years, and continue to puzzle and inspire geologists. The story of the Pinnacles begins in a shallow coastal sea, where billions of marine organisms lived and died, leaving behind a thick layer of shell debris rich in calcium carbonate. As sea levels rose and fell over successive glacial cycles, these deposits were exposed, buried, and re-exposed by wind-driven dune systems. The combination of rainfall, acidic groundwater, and mineral cementation transformed the shell-rich sands into Tamala Limestone, a porous rock susceptible to dissolution. Vertical solution channels, plant root casts, and microbial mats all contributed to the development of the Pinnacles' unusual shapes. Erosion removed the surrounding sand over time, exposing these spires to the surface. The video explores current scientific debates about their precise origin and highlights how the Pinnacles serve as a rare, visually arresting example of dryland limestone weathering and biogenic influence in arid climates.

Our final destination is Queensland’s Glass House Mountains, a dramatic cluster of volcanic plugs that rise sharply above the Sunshine Coast hinterland. These peaks—including Mount Beerwah, Mount Tibrogargan, and Mount Ngungun—are all remnants of ancient magma intrusions that formed between 26 and 27 million years ago during a period of tectonic activity in eastern Australia. Composed primarily of rhyolite and trachyte, the Glass House Mountains are not volcanoes themselves, but rather the crystallized cores of shallow magma chambers that cooled underground. While surface eruptions may have once occurred here, all evidence of those cones has long since been erased by erosion. What remains are the hardened volcanic plugs and domes, slowly revealed as the surrounding sedimentary rocks and weathered volcanic debris were worn away over millions of years. The video breaks down the distinction between extrusive and intrusive igneous rocks, explains the process of subvolcanic emplacement, and shows how geological uplift and climatic forces sculpted these isolated peaks into their iconic shapes.

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00:00-00:49 - Introduction
00:50-04:41 - The Oldest Cave System In The World: The Jenolan Caves
04:42-07:16 - The Pinnacles in Western Australia
07:17-10:33 - The Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland
10:34-11:25 - Conclusion & Patreon / Youtube Member Thank You!