More than 70 people enjoyed a presentation by the SA Museum at the Kangaroo Island Yacht Club recently as they learnt more about the unique fossils found on the island.
Cambrian specimens from Kangaroo Island contain a plethora of animals, including a variety of arthropods that are new to science. These bizarre new species will be named and described during the course of the research.
The Cambrian fossils (635 to 500 million years old) on Kangaroo Island include the oldest known predators, and the first animals with jointed legs, biting mouths, eyes on stalks, protective spines and body armour.
The most common Cambrian fossils on Kangaroo Island are trilobites.
Redlichia is the largest known trilobite from SA and could have grown to about 25cm in length.
Estaingia is a small but very common trilobite, named after Cape D’Estaing near Emu Bay.
These trilobites are also found in China, which suggests that south China was once much closer to southern Australia.
“Kangaroo Island is special because many of the fossils do not have mineral-hardened shells and so are not usually preserved. The only other such fossil deposits are in China and western Canada,” Sue Mikkelsen of SA Museum said.
“I had the chance to visit the dig site along with a sponsor group and ABC’s Catalyst film crew. The anticipation is truly quite amazing as you break open a rock and find fossil traces knowing you are the first human to sight this particular animal evidence,” she said.
This was the second visit to the Emu Bay site with two new trenches dug and rocks painstakingly removed and examined for fossil evidence. New material includes discovery of a “paddle” type appendage not seen before and the first evidence of plant material, as yet unidentified.
The team will return in spring but envisage this site will provide at least 10 years of research work. A component of this visit to KI was a day spent with 230 students from all three campuses of KICE hosted at Kingscote with students exploring and discussing not just the research project and the fossil record of KI but geology, rocks, fossil preparation/documentation and a broad range of associated issues.
Speakers at Thursday’s evening presentation were Dr Jim Gehling, senior research scientist-palaeontology; Dr Greg Edgecombe, research leader in the Department of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London; and Dr Diego Garcia-Bellido Capdevila from the Department of Palaeontology at the Institutio de Geologica Economica, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas in Madrid.