The Remarkable Rocks are one of the best known icons of Kangaroo Island in Australia. Perched 200 feet above the crashing sea, in the Flinders Chase National Park, over on the western side of Kangaroo Island, the “Remarkable Rocks” are a collection of enormous eroded granite boulders sitting atop a giant dome of lava, that has been shaped by the erosive forces of wind, sea spray and rain over some 500 million years.

The golden orange lichen covering some of the rocks and the many different shapes offers tourists plenty photo opportunities at different times of the day.

The rocks are made of granite which was embedded into the Earth’s crust during the Ordovician period, some 500 million years ago.

At that time Kangaroo Island was part of Godwana, the supercontinent in the southern hemisphere, which included Australia, South America, Africa, India and Antarctica. About 150 million years ago, Godwana began to split up into the present continents.

Australia moved northward and with it the Ordovician granite. Through preformed clefts and a certain proportion of easy weathering minerals such as feldspar and mica, spheroidal weathering started. Continuous wind erosion in a relatively dry climate can result in such bizarre shapes.