It is one of the most ancient and fossil-rich places on earth, its centrepiece the gigantic Wilpena Pound basin, its towering gums the inspiration for Australia’s greatest landscape painter Sir Hans Heysen.

But beyond South Australia, little is known about the Flinders Ranges, which lie just four hours’ drive north of Adelaide at what’s known as the gateway to the Outback.

Now, South Australia’s far north communities are hoping the Flinders Ranges will hold the same reverence as Kakadu, the Daintree and Great Barrier Reef, due to an increasingly likely bid to have them listed on the World Heritage Register.

The listing is based largely around the region’s extraordinary age and its status as the birthplace of animal life.

Estimated to be 600 million years old, the Flinders Ranges were once an inland sea and have a stunning fossil record dating back to the Ediacaran period.

It was during this period that animal life exploded as the earliest forms of complex multicellular animal life evolved.

Earlier this month, senior geologists travelled to the Flinders to conduct further site visits to bolster the case for the region’s World Heritage listing.

With the Flinders enjoying a surge in popularity with South Australian visitors thanks to Covid border closures this past two years, local tourism operators are hopeful the listing will help spread the word beyond SA.

This month’s visit was led by Distinguished Professor Mary Droser from the University of California Riverside along with Steve Hore from the Geological Survey of SA and Honorary Professor Glenn A. Brock from Macquarie University.

They were joined on site by staff from the SA Department for Environment and Water and are now preparing the supporting documentation to make the case for the heritage listing.

Professor Droser told The Australian she first visited the Flinders more than 20 years ago and fell in love with the place.

“Douglas Mawson called it one great outdoor museum and it really is a great description because the fossil record is just amazing,” Professor Droser said.

“It will be a big deal if it gets World Heritage listing. It deserves it. It will mean a lot for the region too. There are people who travel the world trying to see as many World Heritage listed sites and places as they can.”

Local tourism operator and Adnyamathanha man Kristian Coulthard was born and bred in the region, hailing from the northern town of Hawker. In 2014, he and wife Gabby started their business, Wadna, which specialises in Aboriginal art in the Flinders Ranges and Outback on behalf of 25 local Indigenous artists. Their business originally started as a hobby where they sold their art and handicrafts at local fairs but has now become a major tourism destination in the region.

They opened an art shop in the town of Blinman in 2020 when the pandemic began and were sustained by SA travellers but hope that the Heritage listing can tell the world about what has long been a secret.

“This is one of the oldest landscapes on the planet and it’s just beautiful,” Mr Coulthard said.

“It is just mind-blowing that to this day the Flinders itself hasn’t already been recognised for its natural beauty and geological significance. Hopefully that’s about to change.”