When I arrived at the Riversleigh Fossil Centre at Outback at Isa, centre manager Alan Rackham told me he was about to show me something very special.
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“It’s a shoulder girdle of a giant horned turtle, about a metre wide and 1.3-1.4 metres long,” Mr Rackham said.
“This is 24 million years old and we did some research on it, and this American paleontologist he’s been over to Lord Howe Island and some of the Pacific islands and they are picking up lots of them over there.”
Mr Rackham said when the scientists dug down into the middens of some of those islands there are finding bits and pieces of the giant horned turtle.
“He was eaten out three hundred years ago (on the islands) but this fellow here is 24 million years old,” he said, speaking of the fossil the museum which was found at Riversleigh.
Though the fossil was located at the site 14 years ago it was only because of the re-opening of the lab late last year that it was able to be properly identified.
“I put it into acid in February,” Mr Rackham said.
“I had no idea what it was but as it came out I thought because of the shape of a joint it was a crocodile because their bones are a bit similar to that.”
Mr Rackham sent the photographs of his discovery to the scientists from the University of New South Wales who were impressed by the find.
“They immediate got back and said this was seriously scientific!” he said.
“In other words, they wanted it – I had dreams of putting it in a nice perspex case and putting it out on display with a nice story but no, we’re going to lose it for a while.”
Mr Rackham said the university will eventually send it back and it was sad to lose it, it was serving a greater purpose.
“It gives us more justification for doing what we do,” he said.
Mr Rackham then showed me another fossil of the same vintage from the same site which he was also working on, a “big bird” he said it was.
“I don’t want to walk around with a handful of bits of bones,” he said.
“I want to keep it for a display piece but I need to stand him up and erode the bottom of him so that it lightens him up a bit.”
To do that he will dissolve the fossil for a period of time in acetic acid which dissolves limestone.
The acid is at 90 percent and if they put the rock in that it would eat the bone so they dilute it to 5 percent.
Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
