Hamersley Range

The Hamersley Range is a mountainous region of the <a href="/facts/Pilbara/PxYV8yYS">Pilbara</a> region of <a href="/facts/Western_Australia/1ouCbwNh">Western Australia</a>. The range was named on 12 June 1861 by explorer <a href="/facts/Francis_Thomas_Gregory/DRt6sP71">Francis Thomas Gregory</a> after <a href="/facts/Edward_Hamersley_(senior)/h9I9eKJn">Edward Hamersley</a>, a prominent promoter of his exploration expedition to the northwest. 
The range is one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth and primarily consists of ancient rock formations, including banded iron formations (BIFs), that are about 2.5 billion years old. The <a href="/facts/Pilbara_Craton/o3H8Jfa6">Pilbara Craton</a>, which underlies the Hamersley Range, dates back to around 3.4 billion years, but the range itself is younger than that. The deformation that began uplift of the region and created the tightly folded rocks of the range began around 2.2 billion years ago, during the <a href="/facts/Ophthalmia_Range/mN2gq1kg">Ophthalmia</a> <a href="/facts/Orogeny/XrvRMpsw">Orogeny</a>. This would make it approximately the 6th oldest mountain range in the world.
<a href="/facts/Karijini_National_Park/HHd2oRsa">Karijini National Park</a> (formerly known as Hamersley Range National Park) lies within the range.

Hamersley Range open-in-new

Hamersley Range