Over 60 dinosaur footprints found on boulder that sat at Queensland school for 20 years
In a corner of Biloela State High School's main office sits an unassuming white slab, covered with fossilised dinosaur footprints.
New analysis suggests the boulder, hiding in plain sight at the central Queensland school for more than 20 years, contains one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints ever documented in Australia.
The slab has 66 fossilised footprints from 47 individual dinosaurs, dating from the Early Jurassic around 200 million years ago, on the surface, research led by Dr Anthony Romilio of the University of Queensland Dinosaur Lab suggests.
The three-toed footprints were made by Anomoepus scambus, a small plant-eating dinosaur that moved on two legs. Skeletal fossils found overseas suggest the species had long legs, short arms and a chunky body.
Romilio described the boulder as significant given that no dinosaur skeletal remains from that time have yet been found in Australia.
'We don't have their bones, but we know that they were around.'
Fossilised footprints found around Biloela, Callide, Carnarvon Gorge and Mount Morgan pointed to abundant Anomoepus numbers in central Queensland, Romilio said. 'Around that Early Jurassic period, they seem to be all over the place.'
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The slab, less than one square metre in area, contains 13 distinct trackways that make up roughly half of the 66 footprints.
The footprints were likely made over days or weeks in mud covered by shallow water, as the animals possibly walked along or crossed a waterway, Romilio said.
'It would be a river type system that is depositing sediment.'
The boulder was discovered at Callide Mine in 2002 and gifted to Biloela State High by senior geologist Wes Nichols, whose wife was a teacher there at the time.
Its significance went overlooked for decades, until community members contacted Romilio after seeing his work on dinosaur footprints at nearby Mount Morgan.
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Another fossil documented in the same study also went unnoticed for years, until Romilio chanced upon it at Callide mine, where it was being used as a car park entry delineator.
'My jaw dropped,' Romilio said, describing the two-tonne rock containing two dinosaur footprints as 'a huge delight'.
To better see fossilised footprints, Romilio combined photographs of each rock into a 3D model, adjusting contrast and lighting to make their outlines clearer.
Given the significance of the discovery and anticipated public interest, the boulder is set to be relocated from the school to be displayed publicly at the office of the Banana shire council.
Though no Anomoepus bones have been found in Australia to date, Romilio is hopeful that public tipoffs may lead to future discoveries.
'For the vast majority of fossils in Australia, most … are not found by palaeontologists – it's other people raising their hand and asking, is this significant or not?'
'Maybe this will be another start to another adventure.'
The research was published in the journal Historical Biology.
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