@ausgeo: 15 million years later – we discover a fossil treasure trove. A set of remarkable fossils have been unearthed near Gulgong, NSW Central Tablelands, this red-dirt landscape would have been covered in a dense tropical-like rainforest with a thick canopy of plants competing for sunlight. These rocks may not contain gold, but to palaeontologists, they have richer veins to reveal. The life forms they encase – spiders, saw flies, feathers and flowers – speak of a vastly different Australia when our island continent was drifting imperceptibly but irrevocably northwards in its post-Gondwana divorce from Antarctica. That’s when a chain of volcanoes burst through the Earth’s crust, leaving remnants that can still be seen in a north-south divide, including NSW’s Mount Warning and southern Queensland’s Scenic Rim. We know, thanks to geochemical analysis, that the basalts deposited by these volcanoes are the source of the iron here. Using Argon dating, researchers have been able to date the basalt to around 37 million years ago. In turn, the fossil site is so well preserved that the content of fish stomachs and the breathing apparatus of spiders can be seen. Credits: @Australian Museum Photographer: Michael Frese/University of Canberra, Videography @SALTY DINGO Max Mason-Hubers IG @ masonhubers Video Editor: Anna Lloyd @VivusProductions #ausgeo #palaenotology #fossildigging #discoveraustralia

Australian Geographic

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Tuesday 11 April 2023 05:52:54 GMT