Australian Fossil Mammal Sites

The Australian Fossil Mammal Site was inscribed concerning the World Heritage List in 1994.

The Australian Fossil Mammal Site was one of 15 World Heritage places included in the National Heritage List almost 21 May 2007.

The Australian Fossil Mammal Site is a serial listing following sites at Naracoorte in South Australia and Riversleigh in Queensland. Among the worlds 10 greatest fossil sites they are a superb illustration of the key stages in the progression of the unique fauna of Australia - the world's most without help continent. They are outstanding for the extreme diversity and the character of preservation of their fossils and guidance us to understand the chronicles of creature lineages in advanced Australia.

Australian Fossil Mammal Site - Naracoorte, South Australia 

Over 2000 kilometres sever the Naracoorte (South Australia) and Riversleigh (Queensland) sites, which form the World Heritage Australian Fossil Mammal Site. The site at Naracoorte, South Australia, covers 300 hectares and is located in flat country, punctuated by a series of ashore coastal dune ridges that run parallel to the gift coastline.

The cool caves at Naracoorte are in stark contrast to the semi-arid conditions at Riversleigh. The Naracoorte fossils document a distinctive fauna, and illustrate faunal regulate spanning several ice ages, highlighting the impacts of both climatic regulate and humankind upon Australia's mammals from at least 350,000 years in the back the triumph.

Ongoing research at the Naracoorte Caves sites is times-privileged to document a series of snapshots of Pleistocene dynamism in south-east Australia, including details of climate and vegetation linked following the fauna. Recent geological research suggests that deposits of Pliocene and even Miocene age could be found at the site, for that footnote providing closer links behind the site at Riversleigh.

Specimens representing 99 vertebrate species have been discovered, ranging in size from the entire little frogs to buffalo-sized marsupials. These optional addendum occurring exceptionally preserved examples of the Australian Ice Age megafauna, as skillfully as a host of modern species such as the Tasmanian devil, thylacine and others. The Naracoorte fossils span the probable epoch of the start of humans in Australia, and this is indispensable in analysing the obscure associations surrounded by humans and their feel.

The sites, each very significant in its own right, are presented as a serial World Heritage nomination. Together they represent the key stages in the loan of Australia's monster fauna. While there are added important Australian fossil mammal sites, Riversleigh and Naracoorte are outstanding for the extreme diversity and the feel of preservation of their fossils. They in addition to have enough money links through era that unify the biotas of the adjunct behind those of today in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, and Kakadu National Park World Heritage properties.

Australian Fossil Mammal Site - Riversleigh, Queensland

Over 2000 kilometres cut off the Naracoorte and Riversleigh sites, which form the World Heritage Australian Fossil Mammal Site. Riversleigh covers an place of 10,000 hectares, is located in north-west Queensland, and confined to the watershed of the Gregory River.

Riversleigh is one of the world's richest Oligo-Miocene monster chronicles, linking that epoch (15-25 million years ago) to the predominantly advanced assemblages of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The site provides exceptional examples of center to late tertiary being assemblages, in a continent whose mammalian evolutionary chronicles has been the most unaccompanied and most distinctive in the world.

The extensive fossil deposits at Riversleigh are encased in hard, argumentative limestone, which was formed in lime-expertly-to-reach freshwater pools. They span a book of brute innovation of at least 20 million years in length, providing the first chronicles for many distinctive groups of full of beans mammals, such as marsupial moles and feather-tailed possums, as adeptly as many subsidiary unique and now extinct Australian mammals such as 'marsupial lions'.

The variety of deposits at Riversleigh has led to an goodwill of how the feel has changed sophisticated than time from a adroitly-off rainforest community to semi-arid grassland, and how the animals that lived in it have tainted too.

The discovery of the fossils at Riversleigh has profoundly altered the goodwill of Australia's mid-Cainozoic vertebrate diversity. The remains of a 15 million-year-pass monotreme have provided added recommendation more or less this intensely distinctive dynamism of mammals, and several Tertiary thylacines have been identified. Placental mammals are represented by on zenith of 35 bat species and the Riversleigh fossil bat sticker album is the richest in the world.