Boulder displayed in school foyer found to have 200-million-year-old footprints
By Jasmine Hines
ABC Capricornia
Topic:Fossils
12m ago12 minutes agoWed 12 Mar 2025 at 1:33am
A black and white photo of dinosaur fossil footprints
An impression of the dinosaur footprints on the rock from the Biloela State High School. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
In short:
A boulder at the Biloela State High School has been found to have one of the highest concentration of dinosaur footprints per square metre in Australia.
Palaeontologist Anthony Romilio says the footprints belong to the Anomoepus scambus from the early Jurassic period.
What’s next?
The school is exploring options to move the boulder from its foyer to a public viewing location.
A boulder displayed in a rural Queensland school foyer for more than a decade has been revealed to have one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints recorded in Australia.
University of Queensland palaeontologist Anthony Romilio said the fossil offered an unprecedented glimpse into early Jurassic period dinosaurs — a time from which no dinosaur bones had been found in the country.
The fossil has 66 dinosaur footprints, covering almost one square metre, from the Anomoepus scambus dinosaur.
"That's a really high concentration of dinosaur fossil in Australia, let alone the entire world,"
Dr Romilio said.
Three small brown dinosaurs standing on two legs
An artist's impression of the dinosaurs responsible for the footprints. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
He said the footprints were about 200 million years old.
"They're all made by these small bodied, two legged, plant eating dinosaurs," Dr Romilio said.
The Anomoepus scambus dinosaurs from fossils collected in the Callide region range from having a leg height of 10 centimetres to just under a metre high.
Students walk past fossil everyday
Biloela State High School deputy principal David Hall said the importance of the rock was only recently uncovered by Dr Romilio.
"To find out the significance … it was a bit shocking, a bit surprising and a bit exciting,"
Mr Hall said.
"It sits in a very public area in our student foyer and our kids walk past it every day and so do we."
He said the head of his school's science department was married to a geologist who worked at the nearby Callide Coal Mine and came across the fossil.
"That area was going to be blasted or disturbed with the mining activities, and he saved that specimen and donated it to the school," Mr Hall said.
A man removing pink silicone from a rock in a school foyer
Anthony Romilio makes a mould of the Biloela State High School specimen. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
Dr Romilio said he was contacted to investigate fossils in the Callide region after receiving media coverage for his work on footprints at Mount Morgan.
When he travelled to Biloela, he said another rock with two distinct footprints was being used to stop cars driving onto a grassed area at the mine.
"My jaw dropped, my conversation then changed to, 'Can I study this fossil footprint in your car park please'," he said.
A large rock in a car park with a distinct small footprint
A boulder in a car park features a distinct dinosaur footprint. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
Dr Romilio said most palaeontologist discoveries in Australia were uncovered by everyday people with eyes on the ground.
"Significant fossils like this can sit unnoticed for years, even in plain sight," he said.
Research 'shatters' ideas held about mining
Dr Romilio said coal miners dig for for coal seams, which belonged to the Triassic age, a period before the Jurassic.
"The rock above that … they're removing that Jurassic rock in order to access the coal seams,"
he said.
"It's really rubbish rock in their mind that they're wanting to remove."
Dr Romilio said if a worker spotted a fossil and it was safe to do so, the mine would extract the piece to save it, while in other cases it was destroyed in the process of mining.
"There's a whole bunch of specimens that we haven't been able to find even though they have been described by former workers from the mine," he said.
Three toed dinosaur footprints on a rock
The footprints were made about 200 million years ago. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
Dr Romilio said it was incredibly lucky the pieces were found at all.
"When you're working you're not thinking you're going to find fossils … we are very lucky that people have spotted these because sometimes you need the right angle of light," he said.
"If you've got that light, you might have a little shadow and go, 'Oh gosh, that kind of looks like a big chicken footprint'."
Dr Romilio said he would like to see stronger regulations in Australia protecting fossils.
He said palaeontologists were required on site during mining activities in some countries.
Dr Romilio said his research recognised open-pit mining could effectively extract and preserve dinosaur footprints.
"When you have an industry like open-pit mining the general assumption is that you won't be able to extract and preserve dinosaur footprints because the process [to mine] is quite destructive," Dr Romilio said.
"That's another idea that's been shattered because we can get these amazing fossils."
The two legged dinosaur wading in shallow water
Dr Romilio says the dinosaur would have been walking in shallow water. (Supplied: University of Queensland)
Mr Hall said the school was working with Dr Romilio to have the fossils casted so a copy could be kept in the school foyer.
He said he was exploring options for displaying the piece more publicly in the community.
Batchfire Resources, the company which owns the mine, said it had worked closely with Dr Romilio for several years.
"The rocks containing the fossils were extracted 20 years ago at the Callide Mine, and have been on display since that time," environment and community advisor Natasha Hutchings said.
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Posted12m ago12 minutes agoWed 12 Mar 2025 at 1:33am, updated10m ago10 minutes agoWed 12 Mar 2025 at 1:35am
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