The park was established in 1973. and protects an area recognised as an area of great geological significance. It channels the Sturt River down to the Adelaide Plains.
The Sturt Tillite formation was the first area in the world to provide definite evidence of Cryogenian glaciation (the Snowball Earth). It is hypothesised that the landform was created from glacial material that dropped from ice floating in the ocean which covered the area 800 million years ago.[5]