A 40 million year old crocodile skeleton exposed.
Source: Museum Victoria
Fossil collection and extraction is hard work!
Museum volunteers have extracted fossils from blocks of oil shale at the Stuart Creek Oil Shale Mine near Gladstone, Queensland.
Collected in 2003 by a joint Museum Victoria-Monash University expedition, the shale blocks formed in what was once the bottom of a large lake.
45 million years ago this lake teemed with wildlife, particularly crocodiles and turtles. Periodically it would dry up, forcing the animals to gather at any remaining puddles of water.
If rain failed to arrive, these pools vanished completely and the animals died in their hundreds. It was here that their fossils were created.
Using a bulldozer, excavation began by stripping away the rocks and dirt from above the fossils. Hand tools were used next to expose the fossil layer, which was then cut into blocks. The position and orientation of each block was carefully recorded on site before being removed.
Back in the laboratories, the position of each fossil was also recorded as the specimens were extracted. Such data helps scientists interpret how the fossils were originally formed.
Examples of these fossils are displayed alongside the Dinosaurs from China in the Touring Hall at Melbourne Museum until Sunday 17 April 2005.