400 Billion years ago
The mountains were not yet formed. Organisms started to live and slowly turned into layer material that would be compressed into solid rock over time.
200 Billion years ago
Continental plates shifted and lifted the sediment layers which then split into a mountain range. Ancient volcanoes hardened the surface into granite and basalt.
50 Billion years ago
Mountainous primeval rainforest prevailed but only until land masses sank back into the ocean to form another layer of sediment that would harden into lime and sand stone. Today, archaeologists still find ancient sea fossils in the mountains.
2 Billion years ago
The mountains lifted again due to tectonic shifts. Tertiary layer of lime and sand stone was formed.
1 Billion years ago
Glaciers occurred through several ice ages, filling and eroding valleys while moving chunks of rock (moraines).
Today
Weathering and erosion still shapes the landscape.
Fiordland has a great variety of rocks: Volcanic granite, basalt andacite, diorite, grey and white marble, grey wacke, coal seams, mud stone and lime stone. Most famous is the greenstone.