13-Aug-2020 Theme: 'Fossils'

(1) Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve, near Shark Bay in Western Australia, is home to living examples of what ancient form of living organism, dating back perhaps 3.5 billion years?

Answer: Stromatalites.

(2) What site discovered in 1946 on Nilpena Station, in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges, has given its name to a Period, 635-542 million years ago, when complex multi-cellular lifeforms first appeared on Earth?

Answer: Ediacara.

(3) In 1955 a roadworker near Canowindra, in central NSW, turned up a rock slab bearing a mass of fossils from the late Devonian Period (about 360-370 million years ago). What were the fossils of?

Answer: Freshwater fish.

(4) In 2008 scientists named a 380-million-year-old fossil ‘Materpiscis attenboroughi’ (after David Attenborough). What made the fossil, discovered at Western Australia’s Gogo fossil site, so special?

Answer: The fossil included a placoderm fish embryo still attached to its mother by an umbilical cord – the earliest evidence of live birth.

(5) What nickname was given to an opalised pliosaur, dating from about 115 million years ago, which was discovered by an opal miner at Coober Pedy in South Australia in 1987?

Answer: Eric.

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