The Australian Opal Centre (AOC) at Lightning Ridge is part of a fossil research and tourism project recently awarded $600,000 by the Australian Research Council.
The project, called ‘Mesozoic Austral Biodiversity: Research and Regional Museum Applications’, focuses on fossil sites in Victoria, NSW and Queensland that record evidence of life over a period of about 30 million years during the Age of Dinosaurs.
In an unprecedented collaboration, the partnership involves workers from Monash Science Centre, the South Australian Museum, Flinders University, Queensland Museum, the Australian Opal Centre at Lightning Ridge, Australian Age of Dinosaurs in Winton and the Outback Eromanga Foundation, western Queensland, as well as specialist researchers from other institutions in Australia and abroad.
The research will produce a comprehensive understanding of eastern Australia during the Age of Dinosaurs, including what lived there, what the environment was like and the effects of a rapidly warming climate.
The project will also boost fossil-based tourism in the outback towns of Lightning Ridge, Winton and Eromanga, establishing a support network for regional fossil museums in western Queensland, NSW and other outback locations.
Project co-ordinator Dr Ben Kear of La Trobe University was in Lightning Ridge in November, to make a preliminary examination of the Australian Opal Centre’s fossil collection and discuss details of the project.
“Lightning Ridge represents a uniquely preserved assemblage recording the earliest known ancestors of many animals in Australia’s modern ecosystems including everything from snails to platypus-like mammals,” Dr Kear said.
“It manifests one of the most complex examples of Australia’s biodiversity from the Age of Dinosaurs - no other current locality has yielded such a rich assemblage of plants, invertebrates, aquatic reptiles, dinosaurs and mammals,” said Dr Kear.
In 2010 the research team, including Lightning Ridge palaeontologist Dr Elizabeth Smith, will publish a comprehensive scientific overview of the fossil flora and fauna of Lightning Ridge, drawing on Dr Smith’s research and incorporating new information provided by other researchers.
“This will be the first detailed account of Lightning Ridge’s fossils published in an international scientific journalwhich will massively increase awareness in the international community of Lightning Ridge as a fossil site of global significance,” said Dr Smith.
Australian Opal Centre project manager Jenni Brammall said the project would produce other benefits for Lightning Ridge.
“We’ll have resources and help from highly experienced people when we establish our fossil preparation facility at Lightning Ridge and a field season or ‘dig’ that people can participate in,” said Ms Brammall.
“We will have an expert fossil preparator available in Melbourne to prepare fossils for the AOC and travel to Lightning Ridge to teach fossil preparation techniques.
“And the networking with other outback fossil museums with support from major metropolitan institutions should produce more resources, leverage and impact for all of the regional centres,” she said.
“There are loads of other benefits too, but one of the most exciting things will be the increase in scientific understanding of fossils in our collection as a result of having some of the best scientists in the world working on them. What were these animals? What did they look like? How did they live and die? Why did they become opalised?
“As well as its scientific significance, this new information will put Lightning Ridge up in lights and enrich our exhibits, publications, educational and public programs.”
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