History | World Heritage Criteria 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

How Hinchinbrook Island meets World Heritage Criterion:

Criteria 1:
"...be outstanding examples representing major stages of the earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going process in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features"

The Hinchinbrook Area includes an exceptional collection of interrelated elements form the mangrove communities, active sand dune process, coastal lowlands through a very wide range of biologic al communities to a peak altitude of 1142metres (Mt Bowen).  All of these are very close to their natural condition and provide  a rare opportunity to stay that way.

The mountain, gorge and waterfall landscape of the Hinchinbrook Area is the result ,in the Australian context, the result of relatively recent uplift of the earth's crust.  The common summit level of Hinchinbrook Island is also a vestige of an older dissected surface uplifted to approximately 1000 metres or more above sea level.  Seen from almost any viewpoint, the spectacular profile of Hinchinbrook Island is clearly very special.

The main mass of Hinchinbrook Island and the coastal rangers are comprised of 260 million year old Almaden Granites.  These rocks formed deep below the surface where they cooled slowly to form large-grained crystals

Hinchinbrook Passage is thought to be fault controlled, with the Island and ranges being thrust up as blocks and subsidence occurring in between to form the coastal plain.  Hinchinbrook Island has had dry land connections to the mainland for most of the past few million years and was separated from the mainland by a shallow, narrow water barrier only at times of high sea-level such as present.

The dune systems at Ramsay Bay, on the east coast of Hinchinbrook Island provide further evidence of former sea level oscillation and geomorphologic processes..  Two major periods of dune building have been dated for the periods 9500-6000 years BP and within the last 900 years.

Fossilised crabs, include a species of Fiddler Crab (6000 years old) are found in the creeks of the Island and on the shore of Ramsay Bay.  There are only two other places (Southern California and the Panama Canal) in the world where fossilised fiddler crabs have been found.

The Brook Island reefs contain in excess of half the coral species recorded from the entire Great Barrier Reef..  The Brook Island fringe reefs are of high quality supporting diverse coral communities comprised of over 200 reef-building species (approximately two-thirds of the species of hard coral found on the GBR ) and including large colonies of a variety of species, several of which are amount the largest of their species yet reported.  These corals are the tropical marine equivalents of emergent rainforest tress both in terms of their age, which are likely to be in the order of several hundred years, and in terms of the provision of habitat for other species.    These Brook Island corals include some of the larges and presumably oldest yet found anywhere on earth.  Such large corals play a significant role as "seed stock" in recolonisation of nearby disturbed areas

PO Box 3
Cardwell
Queensland
Australia 4849