And one of the largest countries on Earth, lying between the

Geologic history

The earliest known manifestations of the geologic record of the Australian continent are 4.4-billion-year-old detrital grains of zircon in metasedimentary rocks that were deposited from 3.7 to 3.3 billion years ago. Based on that and other findings, the Precambrian rocks in Australia have been determined to range in age from about 3.7 billion to 541 million years (i.e., to the end of Precambrian time). They are succeeded by rocks of the Paleozoic Era, which extended to about 252 million years ago; of the Mesozoic Era, which lasted until about 66 million years ago; and of the Cenozoic Era, the past 66 million years.

For millions of years Australia was part of the supercontinent of Pangaea and subsequently its southern segment, Gondwanaland (or Gondwana). Its separate existence was finally assured by the severing of the last connection between Tasmania and Antarctica, but it has been drifting toward the Southeast Asian landmass. As a continent, Australia thus encompasses two extremes: on the one hand, it contains the oldest known earth material while, on the other, it has stood as a free continent only since about 35 million years ago and is in the process—in terms of geologic time—of merging with Asia, so that its life span as a continent will be of relatively short duration. (See also geochronology: Geologic history of the Earth.)