The Blue Mountains Aren’t Really Mountains. So What Are They?

Stand at Echo Point in Katoomba and look across at the Three Sisters. Everyone calls this the Blue Mountains. Geologists describe it differently: a high plateau carved away from the top down. In this video, we count down 15 discoveries hidden in this landscape: a railway built for coal, a pine tree once thought extinct, caves dated to about 340 million years, a ghost town where oil was cooked out of rock, and a drowned valley that now supplies Sydney with water. By the end, you'll know exactly what the Blue Mountains are. In this video: 🪨 #15 The Three Sisters: a cliff caught falling apart 💙 #14 Why the mountains look blue 🏞️ #13 A basin, not a mountain range 🚃 #12 The Scenic Railway, built for coal 🌲 #11 The Wollemi pine, the tree thought extinct 🦇 #10 Jenolan Caves, about 340 million years old ⛏️ #9 Newnes: the oil shale ghost town 🌳 #8 91 kinds of eucalypt 🌋 #7 Mount Tomah's basalt cap 🌿 #6 The peat swamps that feed the waterfalls 🏯 #5 The sandstone pagodas of Gardens of Stone 🧭 #4 The 1813 crossing along the ridges 🏔️ #3 How small rivers carved huge gorges 💧 #2 Warragamba Dam and the drowned Burragorang Valley 🪶 #1 The six Aboriginal nations of the Blue Mountains Which of these places have you visited without knowing what lay beneath your feet? Tell me in the comments 👇 🔔 Subscribe for more hidden geography. #BlueMountains #Australia #Geology