Monash University > News and Events > Monash Memo

Australia's largest Antarctic fossil collection at Monash

12 October 2005

Australia's largest collection of Antarctic fossils has taken up residence at Monash University.

The collection of more than 1000 fossils features invertebrates (including shells with their original mother-of-pearl still intact), leaves and partial tree trunks, remains of giant penguins, vertebrae and teeth of large marine reptiles such as Plesiosaurs, and a 65-centimetre-long skull cast of a meat-eating Therapod dinosaur.

The fossils are mostly between 40 and 70 million years old.

All but 5 per cent were collected by research fellow Dr Jeffrey Stilwell (pictured), from the School of Geosciences.

The collection also includes sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks as well as ventifacts -- rocks that have been sharpened and flattened by wind abrasion.

It was catalogued during 2004 and 2005 with financial assistance from the Monash Research Fund.

Dr Stilwell has completed five Antarctic expeditions -- two to Seymour Island, 100 km south-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, and surrounding islands of the James Ross Island Group; and three to East Antarctica, including the Transantarctic Mountains and the McMurdo Sound region.

"Seymour Island is the only place in the Antarctic where you can see the chain of events at the end of the Cretaceous Period that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs," he said. "The island is literally paved with fossils.

"The fossil evidence indicates that the extinction in Antarctica was not as great as in a lot of other places around the globe. Still, shallow marine communities did not bounce back for 300,000 years -- that's how long it takes for a community to recover from an extinction event, which is important to know in this day of looming habitat loss and species extinctions."

Dr Stilwell said Monash was one of the few universities in the world where Antarctic fossils were routinely used in teaching and research.

"There are not many Antarctic fossil collections, so this collection is a valuable resource for people from other institutes and centres who are interested in extinction, palaeontology, geology, and many other fields."

Although much of the collection is millions of years old, there are also vertebrates and invertebrates less than 10,000 years old.