What to do if you find a fossil in your backyard

Ever wondered what to do if you stumbled upon a dinosaur bone while digging in your backyard?

Who would you call if you discovered a First Nations artefact* while camping in the bush? Or found a fossil while exploring at the beach?

When palaeontologist* and archaeologist* Sally Hurst was doing her Masters degree*, she wondered this very same thing. It led her to start the Found a Fossil project – a guide to provide ordinary Australians with the information they needed to help them know what to do if they found a fossil or a First Nations artefact.

“The inspiration for the project actually came from my mum,” she said. “We were walking across our family farm. We were having a chat about fossils and dinosaurs and she asked me, ‘Sal, if I do ever find a dinosaur, what am I meant to do with it? Who am I meant to tell?’

“And even though I had studied both of those things, I had no idea.”

She realised that if a scientist like her didn’t know, then everyday Aussies like farmers, bushwalkers and miners probably wouldn’t know either.

“And so Found a Fossil was created to try and fill that knowledge gap and provide some guidelines on what to do if you do find a fossil,” she said.

It was an important step to safeguard Australia’s prehistoric* past. Ms Hurst said fossils were being found by ordinary people every day.

“Whether you are on the beach or on a bush walk or you’re a farmer on your land, these objects are everywhere,” she said. “Not all of them are going to be the next big thing. But if it is something like a new dinosaur, then we definitely want to know about it.”

And if you think only palaeontologists like Ms Hurst are digging up dino bones, you would be wrong.

“Australia only has about 25 species of dinosaurs that have been found so far, but 70 per cent of those species were not found by scientists,” she said. “They were found by your everyday farmer or a bushwalker. I think there was even a whale fossil a few years ago that was found by a kid who was surfing at the beach and he noticed some interesting rocks.”

Of course, Ms Hurst has uncovered her fair share of dinosaurs too. She recently took part in a dig at the Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada, a UNESCO* world heritage site known for its rich deposits of fossils.

“We found this weird-looking lump in one of our sites, and I started digging it up, and it turned out to be the brain case or the back of the skull of a really big herbivore* called a Hadrosaur*,” she said. “We don’t often find skull elements, so that was really cool.

“One of the coolest things was that this site we were at had so many dinosaur bones kind of mixed in together. There had been an ancient river that had really just made dinosaur soup and put lots of different things next to each other.”

Ms Hurst and her team then found a massive toe bone next to the skull piece, and when they moved it, they found the tooth of a Tyrannosaur.

“It was probably the length of one of my fingers and it had serrations*, it had tooth wear on it, so you could tell where in the mouth it was,” she said. “That kind of combination of a skull right next to a tooth right next to a toe bone I think is one of my coolest finds.”

While the tooth was found next to the skull, there was no way of knowing if the Tyrannosaur had eaten the Hadrosaur or if the bones had just washed up together because of the ancient river system, she said.

“But also at the same site, we did find a Hadrosaur rib bone that does have bite marks on it,” she said. “So, they were definitely getting munched on by some of these Tyrannosaurs.”

WHERE SHOULD YOU LOOK TO FIND FOSSILS?

If you want to go looking for fossils this National Science Week (August 9-17), local beaches and national parks could be a good place to start, said Ms Hurst. She suggested focusing on rock formations.

“Sometimes those fossils can be imprinted into those rocks and they’re all around,” she said.

However, when it comes to dinosaur bones, Outback Queensland tends to be the best place to find them, she said.

If you do find a fossil or First Nations artefact, be sure to visit foundafossil.com for instructions on who to contact.

Depending on which state or territory you live in, it may be illegal to disturb it, so make sure you check local guidelines first.

For those considering a career in palaeontology or archaeology when they grow up, Ms Hurst said it was important to stay curious, explore museums and roam the natural world. Reading books from your local library can also be helpful.

Ms Hurst will share her experiences as a female fossil hunter at a free Dinosaurs after Dark talk at Sydney’s Ryde Library on Thursday August 14 at 6.30pm as part of National Science Week celebrations.

Visit: scienceweek.net.au/event/dinosaurs-after-dark-with-palaeontologist-sally-hurst-ryde-library/ryde/

POLL

GLOSSARY

artefact: an object made by a human being that has cultural or historical importance

palaeontologist: a scientist that studies fossil plants and animals such as dinosaurs

archaeologist: someone who studies history and prehistory by excavating sites and studying artefacts and other human remains

Masters degree: a university degree that you do after a Bachelor degree to demonstrate special skill in something

prehistoric: the period before written records

UNESCO: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) recognises certain sites across the world as being World Heritage Sites because of their cultural or natural significance. These sites are given protected status

herbivore: an animal that only eats plants

Hadrosaur: also known as duck-billed dinosaurs, hadrosaurs were large plant eaters that had beaklike snouts

serrations: rough edges like a saw or steak knife

EXTRA READING

What’s on this Science Week?

Dino girl scans outback sauropods

Apex predator an Australian first

QUICK QUIZ

What type of scientist is Sally Hurst?

How did she get the idea to start the Found a Fossil project?

How many species of dinosaurs have been found in Australia so far?

What percentage were found by ordinary people (not scientists)?

Where is the best place in Australia to find dinosaur bones?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

1. Found a fossil?

In small groups or as a class, have a look at Sally’s website at foundafossil.com

What do you do if you think you’ve found something interesting that could be a fossil or First Nations artefact?

Record the steps below outlining the key information you found out from the website.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English, Science, History, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension

Where do you think you could go, that you or your family visit regularly, that might be a good spot to search for fossils or artefacts?

What do you find fascinating about palaeontology and archaeology?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity

Curriculum Links: English, Science, Geography, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY

Down-level it

When you up-level a sentence, you do things to it to improve it: make it more interesting, or more complex.

But sometimes, when we read something it can be too complex and we don’t understand it very well. You ask someone to explain it to you, they do (in a simpler way) and you think, well why didn’t they just say that?

Go through the article and find a sentence or two that is complex, or hard to read.

Ask an adult what it means, or try and look some of the words up in the glossary.

Once you know what it means, see if you can rewrite it in a simpler way- down-level it.

Make sure you don’t change the meaning of the sentence in any way though.