Opalised Fossils From Lightning Ridge N.S.W.

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Syndyne

Shaun Galman
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
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Location
Lightning Ridge, N.S.W.
Hi all,

Thought I'd share a small part of my collection of opalised fossil specimens that I've found around the fields over the last few years. I had built up quite a collection previously throughout the 90's, but had to regretfully sell it once the bad times set in on the opal -one of the unfortunate sides of mining. I had it looked at by the guys from the Australian Museum prior to make sure nothing was of importance before the sale. A part of that was a complete Plesiosaur tooth that I had dug from one of our better claims in 99. It was a beautiful specimen, mostly black-grey potch in make-up and no colour present but totally complete in structure. It measured about 3cm in length and had beautifully clean little striations running down the sides. I ended up getting $2800 for that single tooth.

These pieces are mostly the product of the Cretaceous Period and roughly 100million years in age. Many muscle shells here as they are fairly common on some fields. Three pine cones from an ancient relative of the current Conifer Pine species. Three small round "buttons" or Crayfish jaw plates. A couple small cone shells and a nice snail shell that I picked up late last year. Several bones and vertebrae from small mammals and some possible fish species which are the most important pieces here scientifically. These are also worth a small fortune to collectors.

The opal content, while nice is never worth the price of the fossil. Many, many people have destroyed top specimens and fossils trying to cut a stone from the opal content, not realising that sand and other inclusions are heavily present inside many pieces like these. Not only that but 99% of the time they have absolutely no clue what they are digging out.

It's always nice to come home with a new find. Sometimes it can be more exciting than finding a stone, particularly when you have a vested interest in Paleontology as we do :)

Couple quick iPhone snaps. I need to Reverse Macro some of these with my old Canon to offer a far better look. I'll get onto that.
1374479164_fossils_1_copyshaun_galman_2013.jpg

1374479338_fossils_2_copyshaun_galman_2013.jpg

1374479374_fossils_3_copyshaun_galman_2013.jpg


As a side note while on fossils: Back in the late seventies, early eighties we amassed the worlds best collection of opalised fossils. A single part of this collection was one of the single most important fossil discoveries made in Australia. It was in the form of a small Monotreme Jawbone found by my father and uncle back in the early 80's. It came from the infamous Three Mile Fields and was called Steropodon galmani. The Steropodon was part of the Monotreme family and an early precursor to the modern Mammal species. It was a distant relative of the modern Platypus stemming from the Cretaceous Period.

The scientific importance of this piece came when they found the known Cretaceous Period origin was wrong. It was out by 20mill years (give or take) and made the find the very first Mesozoic Mammal fossil found in Australia.

Our entire collection was purchased by the Australian Museum in 1985 on the premise that the whole collection remain in Australia and not be sent overseas or split up. It's all still there locked away and still studied now and again I would imagine. I have had several VIP trips to the Museum since. Once we are there we are normally taken back into the offices and bombarded with questions about the finds. We spent quite some time with Prof. Alex Ritchie, Prof. Mike Archer and even Tim Flannery who was studying Mammals there at the time. To date it's been in thousands of separate publications worldwide, you may have even seen it on many of the fossil programs and documentaries on TV over time. If you have a fossil or Dinosaur book at home that covers Mammals or early Australian Dinosaurs you may just see it in there.

There's a really great little story that goes with the discovery that I will tell if I open a thread just on that fossil. You can Google it also. Just our little claim to fame :)

Kindest regards,
Shauno.
 
Awesome family discoveries Shauno, you must be very proud to be part of it, love these posts mate, thanks for sharing
 
Very very cool Shauno, would love to hear more abouit the discovery, post it up please. Were you the lucky people that found the opalised squid tube? Incredible finds, something to be very proud of.
 
That is a awesome story Shauno, that would be extremely exciting to find a missing link in history. Well done to you guys on selling them to the right place.

DD
 
Cheers guys! The kind words are much appreciated.

headbut said:
Awesome family discoveries Shauno, you must be very proud to be part of it, love these posts mate, thanks for sharing
Most welcome Paul. It truly is something I hold very dear. Even though I was only a young kid at the time, I still knew of the importance of what we were doing and what we had. My mineral collecting days started around age six and like most of us just continued on from there to this day. :)

Heatho said:
Very very cool Shauno, would love to hear more abouit the discovery, post it up please. Were you the lucky people that found the opalised squid tube? Incredible finds, something to be very proud of.

Cheers Heatho,
I think the Belemite Tubes come from another opal town, possibly White Cliffs or Coober Pedy?
I will get a start on the other thread tomorrow. Not sure I can get permission to use the photos of the jawbone though? They belong to the Museum, but I have an exact gold replica (one of only three ever made) that I can post for scale and detail purposes. You can easily Google the real photos anyhow. I even think it's listed on Wikipedia there somewhere lol.

Diggerdude said:
That is a awesome story Shauno, that would be extremely exciting to find a missing link in history. Well done to you guys on selling them to the right place.

DD

Thanks kindly DD.

It was a good and bad thing to do at the time. We had no idea of the significance that the jawbone held until the Museum had bought the collection in it's entirety and were studying it piece by piece. It was a priceless fossil that was sold in the overall collection for a very minimum cost at the time. You just never know what you have, until it's too late. (I now have every piece checked out before sale today. Valuable lesson learned!)

It is important to the country and scientific community worldwide regardless of the monetary value. That was only bi-product that would've caused more problems. Selling to the Government (even for the relatively low price asked) still wasn't easy and took a heap of messy negotiations. If we had of known the correct value of the numerous specimens we would've been sitting on a multi-million dollar collection, even at that time.

All just a part of the story today. :)
Cheers,
Shauno.
 
awesome stuff Shaun . salutations and salutes and applause to you mate


nice combination of hobbies btw

you cant use detectors to look for gold when there is lightning about , so you might as well have a hobby of taking photos of lightning storms. :D
 
HeadsUp said:
awesome stuff Shaun . salutations and salutes and applause to you mate


nice combination of hobbies btw

you cant use detectors to look for gold when there is lightning about , so you might as well have a hobby of taking photos of lightning storms. :D

Thanks kindly HeadsUp!

Gotta stay occupied out here for sure! Not really that much to do if you aren't mining or own a business. The bright side of that is there's very minimal distraction from persuing a hobby or career. Most things I just stumble into and take it from there, then it normally blows all out of proportion in ways I could never imagine. Lightning photography is a nice example of that. Sometimes I still get that little spark of sanity or common sense and wonder what the hell I'm doing standing out in the middle of an exposed ironstone ridge with a camera and metal tripod in an electrical storm!? Haha!

Fossicking for opal and fossils is probably one of the more tame ways I spend my time! :D

Kindest regards,
Shauno.
 
Syndyne said:
HeadsUp said:
awesome stuff Shaun . salutations and salutes and applause to you mate
:D
Sometimes I still get that little spark of sanity or common sense and wonder what the hell I'm doing standing out in the middle of an exposed ironstone ridge with a camera and metal tripod in an electrical storm!? Haha!

Kindest regards,
Shauno.

have you ever thought about wearing electricians boots and a rubber cap for your head ? lol

i have seen electricians rubber gloves on ebay but i think they are only good for 5000 volts or so ? , lightning can 200,000 plus ?

if i ever see a faraday suit come up at an ex government stores auction i will give you a yell


best wishes

Mark
 
Oh my gosh!!!

Glad to see there are others here who love the opalised fossils of Lightning Ridge. I am very familiar with that opalised Steropodon jaw, having seen it just about everywhere as you said, a very big congratulations to your family for uncovering that beauty and also for giving it to the scientific community! Funny you should bring up the Australian Museum, I intend to work there once I get my Paleontology degree in a few years time, I hope!

You are incredibly lucky, being able to find such beautiful and rare fossils such as those, those pinecones are to die for! I myself am in the process of starting an opalised fossils collection, although of course living in Sydney means I have to buy all my specimens (but its usually only the common shells that ever come up for sale). As you have mentioned the prices can be out of this world so that makes things a bit more difficult as well. I did however manage to obtain this opalised reptile tail vertebra, which I treasure very dearly, although i'd like to know a bit more about what animal it comes from specifically. Have you seen or do you have similar opalised bones to this one in your collection? To me it looks like a theropod dinosaur vertebra, the crocodile and turtle vertebrae from Lightning Ridge I have seen look different in shape, but I still cant be certain. What do you think?

1374579383_opal_vert.jpg


The rest of my opalised fossils collection is the pretty common stuff, just a bivalve shell and a couple belemnites. All of which are potch.

I'd love to see what else you have in your opalised fossils collection! They are absolutely amazing. I doubt there are many other private collectors with a collection like that.
 
Hi Paleoworld-101,

That is so great to hear that you're heading into this wonderful field of Paleontology. The area has been quiet for some years now due to the drop off in opal mining, along with the fact that many fossils get destroyed in the now common opal clay washing process and then usually just discarded. Many of us usually gouge opal using picks and smaller made up tools to avoid and and all breakage -that's how I found my pieces easily, but 99% of miners today use hydraulic digging machines and wash all their dirt in bulk, missing the chance to look carefully. What you don't see here is the myriad of opalised wood and numerous shells that I have gathered also.

Not sure of the bone origin to be honest? Great looking piece though! We have many possible creatures that I could've originated from, perhaps there's even the possibility that it's from a newer species. Definitely a good sized bone. My assortment of vertebrae and bones appear to be around half that size, bar one bone that looks similar (the larger dark reddish bone on the left side, middle photo). Perhaps a fossil book based on specimens from here might lead to a clue? The smaller bones I have might be from a similar animal, but of a younger age. This is where study and knowledge comes in. Have you had it looked at by one of the Professors at the Museum? It may well pay to have it looked at properly.

Just choose wisely as there was an opalised fossil book written locally by Robert Smith and his wife, but it was just written very poorly from the first page on. They even stated that our jawbone was found by another person in town at a field that didn't even exist back then?! It somehow got confused with the Kollikodon ritchiei find :rolleyes:

The pine cones are surprisingly common out here. I've seen many over time. We had some exceptional and quite large examples of those in the Galman Collection, which, if you intend to work there, you'll probably get to study at the Museum! :)

When you get a start on the degree I'd like to show you a perfect Agatised Vertebrae from Agate Creek in QLD and see what you think. One of the Professors took a look at it years ago but dismissed it a little too quickly for my liking. It's a perfect specimen. There would have to be a seriously old geological age on this thing. I may be able to dig it out and post a photo or two of it.

Definitely keep in touch. If you're ever up this way I can show you my little collection. If I come across another nice pine cone on my fossicking days I will just send it to you. I'll keep an eye out at the Opal & Gem Expo this week and ask a few fossil dealers I know as well.

Kindest regards,
Shauno.
 
Syndyne said:
Hi Paleoworld-101,

That is so great to hear that you're heading into this wonderful field of Paleontology. The area has been quiet for some years now due to the drop off in opal mining, along with the fact that many fossils get destroyed in the now common opal clay washing process and then usually just discarded. Many of us usually gouge opal using picks and smaller made up tools to avoid and and all breakage -that's how I found my pieces easily, but 99% of miners today use hydraulic digging machines and wash all their dirt in bulk, missing the chance to look carefully. What you don't see here is the myriad of opalised wood and numerous shells that I have gathered also.

Not sure of the bone origin to be honest? Great looking piece though! We have many possible creatures that I could've originated from, perhaps there's even the possibility that it's from a newer species. Definitely a good sized bone. My assortment of vertebrae and bones appear to be around half that size, bar one bone that looks similar (the larger dark reddish bone on the left side, middle photo). Perhaps a fossil book based on specimens from here might lead to a clue? The smaller bones I have might be from a similar animal, but of a younger age. This is where study and knowledge comes in. Have you had it looked at by one of the Professors at the Museum? It may well pay to have it looked at properly.

Just choose wisely as there was an opalised fossil book written locally by Robert Smith and his wife, but it was just written very poorly from the first page on. They even stated that our jawbone was found by another person in town at a field that didn't even exist back then?! It somehow got confused with the Kollikodon ritchiei find :rolleyes:

The pine cones are surprisingly common out here. I've seen many over time. We had some exceptional and quite large examples of those in the Galman Collection, which, if you intend to work there, you'll probably get to study at the Museum! :)

When you get a start on the degree I'd like to show you a perfect Agatised Vertebrae from Agate Creek in QLD and see what you think. One of the Professors took a look at it years ago but dismissed it a little too quickly for my liking. It's a perfect specimen. There would have to be a seriously old geological age on this thing. I may be able to dig it out and post a photo or two of it.

Definitely keep in touch. If you're ever up this way I can show you my little collection. If I come across another nice pine cone on my fossicking days I will just send it to you. I'll keep an eye out at the Opal & Gem Expo this week and ask a few fossil dealers I know as well.

Kindest regards,
Shauno.

Hi Shauno,

Thankyou very much for your detailed response!

A shame that many fossils are destroyed by bulk mining, I agree the attention to detail certainly pays off as your collection proves.

I was in Lightning Ridge a couple years ago, visited the Australian Opal Centre and marvelled at the fossils they have on display and tried my luck at fossicking on the mullock dumps I think they are called? I found lots of nice potch and a couple small pieces of precious opal, wicked stuff. Also managed to buy an opalised shell from Margie at the Bluey Motel gift shop. Am keen to head back to Lightning Ridge when I graduate hopefully in 2016 or later if I get my PhD, would be a dream come true to find opalised fossils first hand.

I think my photo of the bone may make it look bigger than it actually is, it measures 16mm from end to end. I have contacted the Australian Museum and they suggested what I already suspected- dinosaur, crocodile or maybe turtle. I think it comes down to the fact that not enough material has been found to compare with, I mean, Walgettosuchus is a genus of dinosaur based off merely a single tail vertebra! I managed to find a picture of this particular bone too, but it looks a lot more elongated than my specimen (but that of course that could simply be due to a different position in the tail).

Is the poorly written book you are talking about called "Black Opal Fossils Of Lightning Ridge"? It seems to be the only book on the subject that I can find. I'm having trouble looking for scientific papers about the opal fossils of Lightning Ridge as well, I would have thought there would be plenty on the internet.

Your vertebra from Queensland sounds quite interesting, would like to see a photo if its not too much trouble of course. I don't know where Agate Creek is, will have to look it up. You can use a geological map to deduce the age of the specimen, and therefore help narrow down what it might have come from. Is the place where it comes from a known fossil locality? How big is it?

Would love to see your collection if I am ever back in the Ridge, as for the pine cone that is very very kind of you! I am happy to purchase things though if you ever wanted to sell something, not too rare or valuable of course, just give me a buzz.

-Nathan
 
Small world they say! Well i too found a mammal jaw bone at the Ridge back in the 90's when mining opal with my wife 'who spotted the fossil' the melbourne mussum nearly fell over when i gave it to them! Alex Richie tryed to get his hands on it! But lucky we cleared up the mess, and i was so happy to have given something to science. For they said everyone doing degrees would study it and how could i keep it in my draw. As for its value! Well at the time we were finding some opal but im glad i didt know its real value at the time. It was missing its teeth and they said you can tell its a mammals one because of the two nerve endings. At the time i was told it was the 4th one found from the 110 million years ago level. Dont have a picture of it but they sent me a letter and Alex's book on that period. Thanks for sharing your story and good luck on finding more, :).
 
dezman said:
Small world they say! Well i too found a mammal jaw bone at the Ridge back in the 90's when mining opal with my wife 'who spotted the fossil' the melbourne mussum nearly fell over when i gave it to them! Alex Richie tryed to get his hands on it! But lucky we cleared up the mess, and i was so happy to have given something to science. For they said everyone doing degrees would study it and how could i keep it in my draw. As for its value! Well at the time we were finding some opal but im glad i didt know its real value at the time. It was missing its teeth and they said you can tell its a mammals one because of the two nerve endings. At the time i was told it was the 4th one found from the 110 million years ago level. Dont have a picture of it but they sent me a letter and Alex's book on that period. Thanks for sharing your story and good luck on finding more, :).

That's fantastic, has it been given a species name or assigned to any particular group of mammal?
 
I never heard more about it after they sent the book and thankyou note. I was happy to give it to those who love fossils so much, :).
 
G'day

Like yourself, I am enchanted by and have a passion for opalised fossils, mostly from the Ridge, but also from Coober Pedy/ Andamooka and White Cliffs. They are singularly rare National Treasures and I believe strongly they should stay in Australia for future generations to study or just enjoy.
When I first went to the Ridge in the early 1990's (and have made over 200 trips, since, to buy opal) I was acquainted with Dave Galman who told me the story of that wonderful ancient monotreme jawbone fragment. I think it's a great thing that it's now in the Australian Museum with the rest of the collection. In your main photo you have many lovely pieces (my faves are the two whelks in situ --- I love those little guys!) :Y: .

I have read the above posts/replies with great interest and would like to add some information, for clarification. You're right --- to date no opalised belemnites have been found in the Ridge and/or environs, because as you said they are from ancient saltwater squid and lived in the inland sea. Lightning Ridge was not a part of that. Indeed all of the LR opalised fossils are from freshwater species living in and around the freshwater creeks, rivers and billabongs of the era.
Yabby buttons (gastroliths) are still found in modern-day yabbies. A mate of mine was fascinated by them as a boy when he went yabbying and he now has a collection of over 200 opalised yabby buttons. In brief, they are located in the stomach and have the function of storing calcium in the form of calcium carbonate, which is a crucial component in hardening the exoskeleton.
Basically, before moulting, calcium from the exoskeleton is stored in the gastrolith which enables the exoskeleton to soften, split, and be shed. After moulting, the calcium is re-deposited into the new (larger) exoskeleton which hardens.
Opalised yabby buttons are made of opal {hydrated silicon dioxide, SiO2.n(H2O)} and have most likely been formed by replacement/deposition. There are many images of Opalised Yabby Buttons; just Google. Some are uncommonly beautiful.

We'll have to agree to disagree about Elizabeth Smith's book "Black Opal fossils of Lightning Ridge: Treasures from the Rainbow Billabong" :) . First published in 1999 it's by no means exhaustive but is highly regarded in Paleontological circles, with many beautiful pictures and wonderful explanations. For what it's worth, I think it's beautifully written --- clear, fluent, almost poetic. Ms. Smith has a Ph.D. in Paleontology and is widely respected and sought out as an authority in Opalised Fossils. When I want something identified, I ask Liz and/or her colleagues.
("Elizabeth has made an unprecedented contribution to preserving opalised fossils for scientific research. She is also passionate about documenting and preserving the natural history and cultural heritage of Australian opal fields, and has documented the opalised fossil flora and fauna, sites and assemblages of Lightning Ridge in her PhD thesis (University of New South Wales, Sydney 2009) and subsequent peer-reviewed papers." from the AOC Home page )
 

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