Bullita Cave
A maze cave in Judbarra / Gregory National Park in the Northern Territory, Australia: some 123 km of surveyed passages packed into an area about 4 km across, 10 to 20 m beneath a field of bare limestone pavement. Its oldest passages are no older than the Pleistocene.
Dated events and their evidence
- about 1,600,000,000 years ago mainstream
the Skull Creek Formation is laid down, about 1.6 billion years ago in the Proterozoic; the thin Supplejack Dolostone Member within it is the only rock the caves form in source - about 2,000,000 years ago mainstream
the oldest surviving passages of the maze form no earlier than about 2 million years ago; Martini & Grimes estimate their age at 0.5 to 2 million years, in the Pleistocene source - 1990 CE mainstream
the Operation Raleigh expedition begins serious cave exploration in the Gregory karst source - 1992 CE mainstream
cavers first find parts of Bullita Cave source - 2016 CE mainstream
Grimes & Martini report 123 km of surveyed passage in the Bullita Cave System, within an overall extent of about 4 km source
Where
16.0633° S, 130.3833° E
The centre of the cave map in Martini & Grimes (2012, figure 5: 16° 3.8' S, 130° 23.0' E), which is also Wikipedia's point. The maze spreads over an area about 4 km across around it.
Sources
- https://helictite.caves.org.au/pdf1/41.Martini.pdf
- https://info.igme.es/media/boletin/2016/127_1/BG_127-1_Art-2.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullita_Cave
- https://ozgeology.com/blogs/news/the-massive-australian-cave-system-you-never-hear-about
Each event carries Aion's own evidence grade (mainstream, disputed or speculative). This page repeats what the globe shows for this place.