Kata Tjuta Geography and Geology

Kata Tjuta and Uluru are the exposed tips of the same buried slab, and they look nothing like each other because the material that reached each place was different: boulders and gravel at one, sand at the other. Tours of Uluru and Kata Tjuta visit both, which is the easiest way to see the difference for yourself.

Kata Tjuta by the numbers

Every figure here is Parks Australia’s own, and two of them are the ones that reframe a visit.

36 domes across more than 20 square kilometres

That is the fact the name records. Kata Tjuta is not a formation with features on it; it is a group of separate rounded masses with valleys and gorges running between them, spread over an area larger than many towns.

Only four of the domes sit close enough to the road to dominate the view as you drive in, which is why the formation appears to reorganise itself on the approach. The rest run back to the west and are best seen from the air.

546 metres — taller than Uluru, by about 200

The highest dome rises 546 metres above the surrounding plain. Uluru rises 348 metres. That is a difference of just under 200 metres in favour of the formation that receives a fraction of the visitors, and almost nobody arriving here expects it.

Both figures measure height above the plain rather than above sea level, and both are published by the same authority, which is what makes the comparison safe to make. The tallest dome has its own name and its own history, set out on the naming page.

Conglomerate: the plum-pudding rock

Kata Tjuta is conglomerate — pebbles and boulders of granite and basalt cemented together by sand and mud. Parks Australia calls the result a plum-pudding effect, and up close that is exactly what it looks like: a matrix studded with cobbles you can pick out individually with your eye.

That texture is why the surface weathers the way it does. Water works along the boundaries between the clasts and the matrix, and the rock comes away in rounded shells rather than flaking off in sheets.

How 550 million years made two different shapes

Both formations began about 550 million years ago, when erosion from a range of mountains dumped sediment onto the plain below. Around 500 million years ago the whole area went under a sea, and sand and mud settled over the top of it.

The difference is in what arrived where. Sandy material became the sandstone of Uluru; coarse rocky material — the boulders and gravel that had travelled less far — became the conglomerate of Kata Tjuta. Then, about 400 million years ago, tectonic movement tilted the whole lot: Uluru through ninety degrees, and Kata Tjuta by rather less.

Six kilometres underground

What you can see is the top of it. Parks Australia states that both formations continue below the surface for up to 6 km, which makes the visible domes the exposed tips of a slab that runs deep under the sand plain between them.

It also explains why they are there at all. The surrounding country has eroded away around a harder mass that did not, leaving these two remnants standing in an otherwise flat landscape.

Why Kata Tjuta and Uluru look nothing alike

Side by side, on the things a visitor actually notices.

What grows and lives between the domes

The valleys hold more than the open plain does. Walpa Gorge in particular is a sheltered pocket that supports rare plants and a seasonal stream, with pink daisies through late winter and a grove of spearwood at the end of the track. Kanyala, common wallaroos, live in the rocks and are often visible from the path.

The walks page sets out where each of those is, and Kata Tjuta Tours lists the guided departures whose guides can name them as you pass.