Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, is a massive sandstone monolith located in the Northern Territory of central Australia. It is over 348 meters tall and 3.6 km long by 2.4 km wide. Uluru is sacred to indigenous Australians and formed over 550 million years ago from sediment that hardened into sandstone. It is located within Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and is best accessed from the town of Alice Springs, 450km away. Tourism has negatively impacted Uluru through human-caused erosion of walking tracks and extinction of a local shrimp from human waste contaminating water sources.