{"id":756503,"date":"2026-04-27T11:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T11:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/756503\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T11:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T11:39:15","slug":"scientists-discover-how-the-iconic-twelve-apostles-rock-formations-were-created-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/756503\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover How the Iconic \u2018Twelve Apostles\u2019 Rock Formations Were Created in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia \u2013 Credit Michael J Fromholtz (CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Research from the University of Melbourne for the first time has confirmed the ancient impetus that formed the iconic Twelve Apostles, 25 miles of rock formations along Australia\u2019s southern coast.<\/p>\n

The evidence is in: tectonic plate movements over millions of years lifted the giant limestone landmass out of the sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil now, the evolution of the Twelve Apostles had not been well known,\u201d said the lead researcher, Associate Professor Stephen Gallagher from the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.<\/p>\n

The \u201clandmark\u201d study, published this week<\/a> in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, revealed that while the Twelve Apostles were pushed out of the sea over millions of years by shifting tectonic plates.<\/p>\n

The tectonic event, followed by 20,000 years of erosion from wind and waves, helped shape the Twelve Apostles into one of the world\u2019s best-preserved and accessible records of ancient climates and sea levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch like an environmental time capsule, each layer of these giant structures preserved information about the Earth\u2019s climate, tectonic activity, plants and animals over millions of years, including a key time about 13.8 million years ago when the climate was much warmer than what it is today,\u201d Associate Professor Gallagher explained in a media release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cWe are using this \u2018window back in time\u2019 to understand where temperatures and sea levels may be heading on our current path of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Loch Ard Gorge in Port Campbell National Park in Australia \u2013 Credit: Diliff (CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/p>\n

Like tree rings, the layers have provided scientists with a clearer idea of the Apostle\u2019s age than ever before. The researchers say they are actually younger than previously understood.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly preliminary research indicated the ancient limestone layers ranged between seven to fifteen million years old, but we discovered microscopic fossils that more accurately dated the layers as 8.6 to 14 million years old,\u201d said Gallagher.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also uncovered that the tectonic movements didn\u2019t push up the Apostles perfectly straight. Instead, they forced layers to tilt and break along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look closely at the cliffs around the Twelve Apostles today, you can see the limestone layers are not flat but are, in fact, tilted by a few degrees. Small fault lines can also be seen, which are records of ancient earthquakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Credit Mark Cuthell \u2013 RELEASED with study<\/p>\n

Although the limestone sea stacks 120 miles southwest of Melbourne were named \u2018the Twelve Apostles\u2019, there may have only been nine. Only seven remain today, after the collapse of one that was 50-meters-tall (160 ft) in 2005, and another in 2009, leaving only stumps in the protected area within Port Campbell National Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new research along this 40\u2009kilometers (25mi) of continuous sea cliffs, employed photographic and digital imagery, with field mapping, and stratigraphic and microfossil analyses, to reveal that their geology spans 15 million years of Earth history.<\/p>\n

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Flooding since the Last Glacial Period 23,000\u201320,000\u2009years ago created the sea stacks, cliffs, and estuaries, as extreme weather conditions from the Southern Ocean gradually eroded the soft limestone, weakening cracks in the cliffs, causing them to form caves in the cliffs, which then become arches that eventually collapsed, forming free-standing stacks.<\/p>\n

CREATE SOME TRAVEL PLANS By Sharing The Awe-Inspiring Site on Social Media\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia \u2013 Credit Michael J Fromholtz (CC BY-SA 4.0) Research from the University…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":756504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[4740,20774,930,120460,1183,159,1164,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-756503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-australia","tag-geology","tag-oceans","tag-prehistoric","tag-research","tag-science","tag-travel","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116476482974146575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}