Australia’s Finest Zeolite – A Short History

Australian zeolite was formed during the Carboniferous Age and is one of the oldest commercial zeolite deposits in the world. This is how Australia’s finest zeolite was formed:

More than 305 million years ago there was an extensive range of active volcanoes where the Warrumbungle Range in NSW now stands. For millions of years these volcanoes poured out a continuous stream of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.

The ash travelled far enough to allow the heavier particles to fall to the ground leaving only silicates, one of the main building blocks of zeolite, to travel with the prevailing winds to fall into a shallow inland lake which was the perfect depth to form zeolite. The lake was approximately 130 sq km in size, so it became a sizeable deposit. Over millions of years the lake solidified with compacted zeolite which eventually turned into a hard rock.

About 5 million or so years ago (at the time the Great Dividing Range was being formed) there was a series of catastrophic earthquakes. One of the earthquakes was so violent that the solid deposit of zeolite was turned on its edge and dropped into an enormous hole in the earth leaving only its edge exposed. This is our source of fine quality zeolite.