Essay: Fossils located in Riversleigh, Queensland

Riversleigh is located in North-Western Queensland, the reason as to why it’s such a good fossil site is because there is such a high concentration of calcium carbonate beneath the water table in the ground. What remains at Riversleigh is what’s left of an ancient seabed that once covered the area. It is said that the area was pushed up and then eroded down into its current day state. At this time any source of life consisted of bacteria and stromatolites. The fossil area is over 25 million years old. Over time, Australia split from Antarctica and moved north, due to the change in location of Australia and the ocean currents between the two continents, the climate changed.
– “Emuarius” The Emuarius was said to be a combination of both the Emu and Cassowary. They had a cassowary-like skull and femur and a lower leg and foot like an emu. They lived during the early Miocene and late Oligocene stages. They were thought to have lived in an open forest environment as they didn’t have the same properties as the emu which would put it in a more densely vegetated environment. It is believed that they would-like the emu now- would have fed mostly on plants, but also complimented their diet with insects. Scientific Name; Emuarius Gidju.
– “Balbaroo Fangaroo” The Balbaroo Fangaroo was a small kangaroo with huge canine like teeth. They were herbivores, and even though they had large teeth, it was thought that they were used for defence rather than to catch prey. Fragments of the Fangaroo were found in freshwater limestone deposits at Riversleigh and it is possible that they were once living near freshwater areas. It is not formally known where these animals were actually inhabited. They lived during the Late oligocene to the Early Miocene time period. Scientific Name; Balbaroo Fangaroo.
Organisms at the Riversleigh site have given us a better understanding as to how Australia changed over the years due to the fossils left behind, the change in climate and continental drift. The fossils that we can find on Riversleigh today can give us an insight because we can find out when these organisms once lived, and then finding out how long ago that was which then leads to finding out the age of the area. The fossils, and what sort of sedimentary rock they were fossilised in tell us what type of environment Australia was 25 million years ago, a thick rainforest that was home to thousands of different animals is whats presumed to be what the continent was like. This fossil site can give us the information we need to see the evolution of Australian fauna over a long time period. Australia used to be a giant part of a supercontinent called Gondwanaland, the separation from this continent is the reason we have such unique flora and fauna like large crocodiles, carnivorous kangaroos and gigantic birds- all of which have been identified and studied from fossils. The change in climate and the environment would’ve been the reason that some of the previous animal species living millions of years ago are no longer living today. Due to the organisms we are able to find out the type of animals lived, how the continental drift of the continent changed our country, and also how the drift changed our climate and how that affected the environment and fauna.
“…to see dinosaurs all we have to do is look to the skies where they are flying all around us”
This statement leads us into thinking about what happened to the Dinosaurs and how they disappeared from our earth 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs were wiped out due to an asteroid hitting our earth and burning up the climate, which wiped out the dinosaurs but the plants remained. I do agree with this statement, but also disagree with it.
The reason the dinosaurs are no longer roaming this globe is because of an asteroid hitting the earth, setting off a heat wave which killed them all. This asteroid, of course, came from space. And i believe that we may have to research space and find out where this asteroid may have come from, what it was made of and what speed it was going towards earth when the collision happened. This statement could also mean that we just need to further into space and research the asteroids that are “flying all around us.”
Looking into space, however, maybe isn’t the best way to find out what happened to the dinosaurs all those years ago. Looking down into the ground at fossils and the sedimentary rock layers can tell us what environment the dinosaurs used to live in and also possibly what environment the dinosaurs lived in during their final moments on earth. We also found the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, which marks the moment more than 75% of organisms on earth died. The reason that we know it was an asteroid that hit earth is due to a layer of ash that was found in between layers of rock from millions of years ago. This layer was rich in iridium, which is rare on Earth but abundant in asteroids- which was the missing key that led to the asteroid theory discovery. This doesn’t tell us exactly what happened, but gives us more of an insight as to what happened.
In conclusion, I don’t support this statement. Even though there are facts that we can find out about the asteroid that could come from the sky, i think at the moment we need to be finding out exactly what happened upon its impact on earth, and therefore, we’d need to look at the ground to find out. Fossils, and layers of rock can tell us a lot about what happened.