Ediacara Hills

The hills are known for being the location where significant trace fossils of a group of previously unknown lifeforms were discovered, and have given their name to the geological period known as the Ediacaran.

[7] In respect of "the locality where well preserved Precambrian fossils of multicellular life were first found globally" the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included the "Ediacaran fossils in the Ediacara Hills, Flinders Ranges" in its assemblage of 100 geological heritage sites around the world in a listing published in October 2022.

[9][10] Earlier Australian sources suggested that the "name 'Ediacara' or 'Idiyakra' may be derived from an Indigenous term associating it with a place near water".

[13] Supporting this latter contention, it has been argued that the word "has nothing in it that corresponds to any word for water in any of the local languages" and that local tradition "has it that the name meant 'granite plain', but, since there appears to be no igneous rock in the area, this could well refer to the hardness of the ground, rather than to its geological composition".

[14] However, there are a number of complications in trying to establish the origins of place names supposedly relating to Aboriginal words, and there is no definitive answer for Ediacara.