Slice of WA's Pilbara at London landmark

A 2.6 billion-year-old slice of Western Australia's geologically wondrous Pilbara region is on display at one of London's most significant cultural landmarks, the Natural History Museum.

The colourfully layered, 2.5 tonne piece of banded iron formation was sourced from Rio Tinto's Mount Tom Price mine and selected with the help of traditional owners, the Eastern Guruma people.

The rock was diamond-cut to shape before being shipped almost 14,000 kilometres to London.

It now forms part of the newly refurbished Hintze Hall display, which will be opened by the Duchess of Cambridge and Sir David Attenborough on Friday.

BIFs were formed more than three billion years ago when bacteria in oceans began to produce oxygen through photosynthesis.

The oxygen combined with dissolved iron in the sea to form insoluble iron oxide, which separated out of the water and sank to the seafloor.

As it settled, bands of red and grey iron-oxide developed between layers of silica-rich sediment.

Without this process, there may never have been an oxygenated ocean to support the eventual evolution of more complex life on Earth.