Riversleigh
From Freepedia
Riversleigh, in North West Queensland, is a 100 km² area containing fossil remains of ancient mammals. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1994 and is an extension of the Lawn Hill National Park.
Riversleigh is one of Australia's most reknowned fossil sites. The process by which these fossils were created included large sand dunes that once covered this area. These sand dunes contained large traces of calcium as well as limestone that were laid down by the ancient sea. Fossils of Diprotodon Optatum have only been found here once and are thought to have originated from as far west as modern Darwin, Northern Territory and brought to this site by the slow moving sand dunes due to the overall gradient of Australia at that period of time due to the ancient sea having flooded this section of Australia 500 million years ago.
Fossils have been found here and are thought to be a result of protection of millions of years from the sand dunes which inturn cause the burial of these fossils in calcium and limestone compressed over this period of time.
Creatures of Riversleigh
- Thingadon, a bizarre arboreal marsupial
- Ekaltadeta, a carnivorous rat kangaroo
- Silvabestius, a giant wombat
- "Fangaroo", a fanged kangaroo
- Wakaleo, a marsupial lion
- Priscileo, a marsupial lion
- Burramys, the mountain pygmy possum
- Nimbacinus, a precursor of the Tasmanian wolf
- Obdurodon, a giant platypus
- Brachipposideros, a leaf-nosed bat
- Nimiokoala, an ancient koala
- Yarala, a tube-nosed bandicoot
- Paljara, a small woolly ringtail possum
- Pengana, a flexible-footed bird of prey
- Cockatoo
- Trilophosuchus, a tree-dwelling crocodile
- Baru, the cleaver-headed crocodile
