BACKGROUND

 

The Park is a geologist's dellght!

 

The oldest rocks exposed in Yarra Bend Park are marine sandstone and mudstone from over 400 million years ago. An excellent display of these sediments is at the cliff face at Dights Falls, showing faults and folds, layering and ripple beds of exposed ancient seabeds.

 

Lava flows from volcanic activity 2.2 million years ago and again about 800, 000 years ago, introduced basalt soils to the Park allowing a wider range of vegetation.

 

An outlier of the Brighton sands over Silurian sediments occurs on high points of the Park. The Brighton sands are freshwater alluvial sands and gravel of tertiary origin.

 

School groups regularly visit the Johnston bridge strata for geography studies.