50 million year old fossils found under Brisbane roadworks

Transcript from ABC, the World Today

ELEANOR HALL: Now to an extraordinary discovery on Brisbane's roads. Construction workers have unearthed fossils that are more than 50 million years old.

Queensland researchers say the bones are from ancient crocodiles, fish, shells, and plants and could fill in a missing link in worldwide knowledge of what happened after the dinosaurs were wiped off the planet.

The find is particularly significant because very few sites of this age are available for study, as Nance Haxton reports.

NANCE HAXTON: It was the last thing that road workers expected to find during construction of a new open level crossing.

But earthworks at the site at Geebung in Brisbane's north have brought to light much more than expected, as Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk explains.

GRAHAM QUIRK: Well it's amazing what you find when you dig, and that has discovered fossils of ancient crocodiles, fish, some freshwater shells, and plant impressions.

So we've got an air of excitement happening in the suburb of Geebung, Brisbane, today.

NANCE HAXTON: He says the fossils were found in a layer of oil shale estimated at more than 50 million years old.

GRAHAM QUIRK: They thought, "Well this looks unusual." They then contacted the authorities, and subsequent to that of course, now the Queensland Museum are involved as is the University of Queensland and we have now the opportunity to look through a whole lot of spoil that's been taken from those drills, and that will show us what other aspects there might be to this fossil find.

NANCE HAXTON: The discovery has excited Queensland researchers, who rarely have access to fossils of this age.

Queensland Museum CEO, professor Suzanne Miller, says the find is not only unusual but significant.

SUZANNE MILLER: It's very unusual to find materials being uncovered in these urban sites. I mean, most discoveries of this nature are found miles from anywhere.

So first of all it's very unusual to have an urban construction site that finds it, and secondly to have the people on the construction team realise that there was something unusual and to make that call was incredibly fortunate for us.

NANCE HAXTON: She says the museum now needs to find a site for the five tonnes of soil that road workers have set aside, and a team of community volunteers to help sift through the material.

SUZANNE MILLER: We believe that there's real potential in this site to uncover something that will be absolutely unique for Queensland and really unique for Australia.

So in fossil terms, it's relatively young, but actually that's what makes the site very interesting and unusual, because after the dinosaurs - after the extinction that killed off the dinosaurs and many other animals - very small things tended to survive and this is one of those sites that's showing us all these smaller animals that co-existed in one place in one habitat at the same time, just after the massive extinction that wiped out a vast amount of life on the planet.

So it's a really critical time for understanding how life then went on to evolve, but it's quite a bit before the time of the famous Australian megafauna where you have the giant kangaroos and so on.

So it's a bit of a missing link in the geological and fossil history, not just of Australia but within the world.

NANCE HAXTON: So what do you hope that we could perhaps learn from these remnants that have been discovered?

SUZANNE MILLER: Well, knowing what animals lived together at the same time in this sort of environment when this part of the world was much warmer and wetter and just working out where these animals may have evolved, where their place on the evolutionary tree is, is really significant for us.

It's a gap in world understanding right now, and so we're really excited about the prospects of being able to fill that gap, and we know there will be a lot of international interest from experts around the world in this material.

NANCE HAXTON: But despite the discovery's significance, nothing will stop the march of progress.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk says the find won't hinder the timetable for the project, although engineers are now liaising with researchers in case more unusual remains are unearthed.

GRAHAM QUIRK: The project can continue, but the pylons have been drilled, and so it's really now a case of all of the spoil from those drillings, they will be taken away and examined carefully.

I understand the work will take two to three years to complete - there's that much spoil that has been drawn from this site.

So the project will continue: it's a $200 million road, congestion, and safety project.

But certainly, this discovery is very significant. It could well have global consequences and significance, so we'll wait and see what that uncovers.

ELEANOR HALL: That's the Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk ending that report from Nance Haxton.