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Amber fossils a first for Australia



"Amber fossils a first for Australia"
Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online - Wednesday, 29 November 2006


Huge chunks of amber containing the remnants of ancient rainforests have been found along beaches in Far North Queensland, the first amber fossils to be found in Australia.

The amber pieces, some as big as a football, contain flies, beetles, spiders, flowers, fungi, moss, fern spores and pollen as well as bubbles of gas and water from the time, the researchers say.

The fossils are at least 4 million years old, they say, possibly much older.

Fisherman Dale Wicks and partner Beth Norris discovered the amber while taking evening walks along the beach on the Cape York Peninsula, says University of New South Wales palaeontologist Henk Godthelp.

"It turns out that it was the very first discovery of true amber in Australia," says Godthelp, who was invited to analyse the fossils and reported the find at the Riversleigh Society meeting in Sydney this week...


Read more at:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2006/1796778.htm


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Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist         http://www.geocities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia        http://heretichides.soffiles.com
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