The framework of Kangaroo Island was largely established during the Cambrian, when widespread marine sedimentation resulted in thick accumulations of shallow shelf to deep marine terrigenous sediments. Orogenesis has deformed the strata into an arcuate highland belt that is a contiguous extension of Fleurieu Peninsula. Subsequent episodes of marine and continental sedimentation and weathering, have resulted in thin but extensive veneers on the deformed early Palaeozoic strata. These younger events have been paramount, however, in determining landscape development.