Original story by Tony Moore, BrisbaneTimes
The discovery of 50 million-year-old fossils in Brisbane's north is set to shed light on the world's biological dark ages and how species evolved in a climate up to 10 degrees warmer than today.
Range of plant, fish and crocodile fossils found at Robinson Road at Geebung. Photo: Tony Moore
The plant, pollen, fish, amphibian and reptile fossils were discovered underneath a rail overpass at Geebung, opening the door to an era that palaeontologists are eager to study.
With the issue of climate change so prominent today, the ramifications of the find are wide-reaching.
Australia was dominated by warm and swampy rainforest and rivers 50 million years ago and the discovery of fossils from the period will provide lessons for how species - including mammals - evolved in a warmer, more humid environment.
"Can we find enough evidence within the fossils to show what happened during the change in the temperature?" Dr Hocknull said.
"If we understand how the species co-existed during the period of global warming, maybe we can get a glimpse into what our future might hold.”
The fossilised plants and animals lived after the age of dinosaurs, which finished 66 million years ago.
The age of Australia's megafauna - including three metre kangaroos, seven metre goannas, giant wombats, three-tonne diprotodons and lions - began 30 million to 35 million years ago.
In between, about 50 million years ago, Australia was just about to - or had recently - broken apart from Antarctica and South America.
"We actually call it the palaeonteological dark age," Dr Hocknull said.
"It is such a black hole of our knowledge in this particular period of time."
Palaeotologists call it the Eocene Epoch, the last brief period before the Australian land mass broke away from Antarctica and the Americas.
Bond University's Professor Steve Webb says the fossils will help researchers learn more about the evolution of Australia's isolated marsupials into the continent's megafauna, about 45 million to 50 million years ago.
"It is possible that these marsupials got onto a life raft just in time, called Australia," Professor Webb said.
"And because of the isolation they have had ever since, they formed their own cohort of animals within the marsupial group, which eventually became megafauna.
"That is they became bigger and bigger and bigger."
Professor Webb said the Geebung fossils filled a gap, because most of Australia's most famous fossil finds come from Riversleigh in northwest Queensland.
Riversleigh fossils are dated 25 million years ago.
"So we've got this marsupial dark age from about 50 million years to about 25 million years."
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