Byron Bay : Geological History

Geologically speaking, if we could go back twenty million, what we now know as Byron Bay was on the edge of an active range of lava-spewing mountains which stretched from Byron Bay to Nerang on the Gold Coast, and far out to sea. It was this volcanic activity which formed the north east coastal mass.

Mt. Warning

Eons passed and the volcano's became extinct, with the help of the four elements and time, the lava flows were worn down and washed away. All that is left of one of the volcanos was the plug (the core of the volcano) - Mt Warning, which is now the region's iconic landmark.

With contemporary fears of global warming so prominent in the media, it is interesting to consider that at the end of the Pleistocene - about 10,000 years ago - the ice caps melted and sea levels rose and covered an 8 km wide strip of land off Cape Byron, leaving high relief terrain exposed as a coastal promontory. The sea stabilised around 6,000 years ago.

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