Central Queensland - Mount Morgan Part One - The Mount Morgan Historical Museum

I was recently lucky enough to head into Central Queensland – a region long connected to Australian palaeontology. From the fossil rich and award-winning Capricorn Caves (more on them later) to the world famous Winton fossil fields, this region has a lot on offer for a paleo fans.

A nice view heading towards Mount Morgan from Rockhampton.

Just outside the city of Rockhampton is Mount Morgan – a remote village sitting along the Dee River with a very interesting secret (though not a secret to the locals). Though once prosperous thanks to the local Mount Morgan mine – which produced among other minerals gold and copper – the closing off the mine hindered the town, which is now looking to use its history to draw in tourists, and the jewel of the town is The Mount Morgan Historical Museum.

“Housing an impressive collection of relics from the town's earliest years to the present, the Mount Morgan Historical Museum delves into the captivating history of Mount Morgan.

Among the extensive range, displays include mining equipment, historic household and business objects, and an extensive photographic display; taking you through the years of Mount Morgan life, and presenting the faces and stories of some of the town’s most prominent individuals.

The fascination continues with the Museum’s fine collection of horse-drawn buggies and wagons, along with the first motor hearse in Mount Morgan (a 1921 Buick) and a 1942 International Fire Engine.

Part of the unique display also includes the Museum and Gallery Achievement Award winning exhibit Mount Morgan Murri. Telling a fine example of the history of the local Indigenous community, Mount Morgan Murri features a variety of artefacts, interpretation panels, stories and photographs recovered from around the local area. 

The collection also includes local Indigenous artwork and an audio visual display of photographs and voiceovers - presented by members of the Mount Morgan community.”

There is a lot on display here, from everyday implements used over the last century or so to specimens of the minerals once dug out of the ground there. What was of great interest though was the palaeontology specimens.

It turns out the mine produced a lot more than gold and copper. The mine is mostly situated in Jurassic age rocks, and these have produced several fossils, both marine and terrestrial – and many of these are on display at the museum. 

There are a number of plant fossils on display, but the real jewels are the plesiosaur fossils. These marine reptiles with strangely long necks have been found elsewhere in Australia, but their appearance in dusty Queensland is a stark reminder that this part of the world used to site alongside a large interior sea.

Now the plesiosaur fossils are replicas as the real ones are part of the Queensland Museum collection and helping palaeontologist unravel the bizarre history for the country, but I loved seeing them as they were an unusual find in a museum where I was not expecting to see anything so cool.

BUT – what came next was shocking. It would seem the Mount Morgan mine contains a treasure potentially far more valuable than gold or copper. Running along the roof of the mine are over 300 dinosaur footprints – revealing what sort of creatures once walked alongside this ancient sea.  Dating back to the early Jurassic – a time there are very few fossils from anywhere in the world – these trackways are one of the most important dinosaurs finds on the continent – and I had never heard of them.

One reason for this was the closure of the mine. Though the footprints were famous in the region and locals ran tours into the caverns to see these prints – a collapse meant the tunnels became too dangerous and the mine was closed.

Recently there has been a push by local governments to have surveys done of the mine and for any safety measures needed to keep visitors safe to be installed, but for some reason the state government has shied away from agreeing to this – creating some political unrest in the region.

Hopefully the collapse has not occurred to the fossil roof, parts of which hang 8m above the tunnel floor, and access can so be granted to this treasure again.

This is why I have called this part one – as I am hoping one day to get a tour of these footprints and will cover them in a future article – but for now you can see casts of some of these prints at the Mount Morgan Historical Museum.

Recognised species amongst the footprints are

Anomoepus: First recognised in the Connecticut River Valley, Massachusetts, in 1802. E.B. Hitchcock described the footprints as evidence of ancient birds, thought today they are identified as  belonging to a dinosaur – most likely an ornithischian. Similar prints have been found in West Australia, Poland and the Czech Republic.

Grallator: these three toed prints have been found across the globe, and likely belonged to a small predatory dinosaur like Coelophysis. These too were originally named by Hitchcock.

Eubrontes: Hitchcock looked at the sheer size of these much large prints and felt they came from a truly enormous animal that must have shaken the ground as it stopped around – thus he named the ‘true thunderer’. These likely belonged to the largest land animals of their day – the herbivorous prosauropods or perhaps even early sauropods. The prosauropod is more likely though as there was a prosauropod found in northern Queensland – though the true origins of this specimen are still being hotly debated (and an article for another time).

Skartopus: known from the world famous trackway at Lark Quarry, the Age of Dinosaurs website noted:  “They are typically described as being longer than they are wide, symmetrical and sharp toed. They are small three toed theropod footprints about 2–5cm long, representing dinosaurs 13–22cm tall at the hips… Mt Morgan has produced a single Skartopus footprint which, at 5cm long, likely represents a theropod 22cm tall (brush turkey-sized).”

So in summary - I enjoyed my visit to the Mount Morgan Historical Museum - it had some great exhibits and it was a joy to find a paleontology display in a place I was not expecting to see one...ohhh....and there's a dinosaur on the roof!

 The Mount Morgan Historical Museum is closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, Good Friday and New Year's Day

Open 7 days from 10:00am – 4:00pm.

Adults- $6, Students/pensioners - $4, children (5-15yrs) $2. PHONE 07 4938 2122

87 Morgan Street.

Crystal Palace

If paleo-geeks have a Mecca, surely it must be the old gardens of Crystal Palace in London. I’d been to the city before and completely missed out on visiting the concrete dinosaurs, designed and built by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins in 1852. These were the first life-sized dinosaurs the world had ever seen and helped triggered the first real dinosaur craze.

As I was about to fly home the next day, I was determined not to miss them a second time!

Driving back into the capital from the Isle of Wight, it took a few hours to find Crystal palace, but eventually find it we did. Ever since I was a kid I’d wanted to see these dinosaurs. I cannot think of a single dinosaur book I’ve ever read that didn’t have an image of one of those iconic monsters like the snarling, rhino-like Megalosaurus creeping up on the lounging, arm outstretched Iguanodon.
Hopping out of the car there was only one word for how I felt….giddy.
My girlfriend Jo walked patiently up the hill to the gardens with me and listened patiently as I babbled on and on about what we were about to see and why it was so important. I was in fact so busy talking to her about the display that I almost walked into the very closed and very chained gate with a very large sign on it announcing the Crystal Park Garden would be closed for this day- and this day only.
I think my girlfriend could tell by the ashen colour my face had turned I was more than a little unhappy. Solemnly, we turned and walked away… well I turned, she’d already taken several steps away, perhaps distancing herself from the upcoming explosion of expletives she was certain was about to erupt and possibly get me arrested for public obscenity.
Half way back to the car, dragging my feet like some child who wasn’t allowed to ride the roller coaster, I turned and simply said…‘Not a chance!’
Running around the fence enclosing the park, I eventually found a gardener and told him I worked at a Dinosaur Museum, had been keen to see the gardens my whole life and was flying home the next day, perhaps for good, so there was no way I could come back. The guy said he couldn’t help me but if I went back to the chained side gate, he’d see what he could do.
10 minutes later a Crystal Palace security guard, along with his ferocious guard dog, opened the gate and let us both in, telling us to meet him back at the entrance in about 40 minutes so he could let us out again.
Champions!
Jo and I wandered around the garden and it occurred to me very few people have likely ever had the run of the place by themselves the way we did that day.
What a joy. Crunching our way down the gravel dirt paths on a warm sunny day with the flowers blooming, catching the well sculpted statues of prehistoric creatures emerging out of the foliage, with no screaming parents and bored kids to ruin it for us….it was bliss.
Originally the man-made lake all the figures surround was tidal and the lowering and rising water levels would revel and hide the animals at various time of the day. Todays the ‘lake’ is just a really large pond with a series of small islands that contain most of the exhibits, and as the science of palaeontology grew, the highly inaccurate dinosaur models became more and more ridiculed and the park slowly fell into decline. This process wasn’t helped when the glass monolith of Crystal Palace itself burnt down in 1936.
In the 1950’s the models were cut out of the gardens plant life that had overgrown them, cleaned up, repaired and put back on display, though not in their original positions. This process hadn’t been the best (on one model they’d used plasticine for repairs) and the garden soon started to fall apart again.
In 2002 a complete restoration of the sight was finished with many of the prehistoric (looking) plants that had originally been planted alongside the models replaced, while many of the missing or destroyed figures were substituted with new ones. London had finally woken up to what treasures these models were and they were soon historically listed, protecting them for future generations.
I have to say the workers have done a fine job as the garden is fantastic, full of nooks and crannies where you can spot some prehistoric beastie hiding behind an archaic monkey puzzle tree or antediluvian fern. The display is so well planned that often the animals are visible from numerous locations even though they seem to be completely surrounded by vegetation.
To begin with, as you walk down the path you cross a family of Megalocerous, including a huge stag with antlers that had originally been the real fossils until someone broke in and stole them years ago.
Next, feeding under some trees or beside a creek are herds of Anoplotherium (which look a little like camels even though they were probably more hippo-like) and Palaeotherium (tapir-looking critters). Its many of these smaller figures that had been missing for many years before the 2002 restoration.
Further along you catch a glimpse of the monstrous Megatherium reaching into a tree to feed. This model is often seen throughout the park due to its large size and the fact that there are few trees surrounding it.
As you turn the next corner, you catch a brief glimpse of a wall of scaly skin, which soon blossoms into the complete Megalosaurus. Easily the most inaccurate of all the parks animals, I have to say I didn’t care one bit as this massive creature just looks terrific on its grassy hill. Looking like a cross between a crocodile, a bear and an elephant, the statue is enormous and stands magesticly across the pond.
The path cuts down along the ‘lake’ and you get your first look at what the Megalosaurus is stalking, the equally scaled Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus that had, up until now, been hidden behind the bend in the creek and a number of strategically placed trees. All three dinosaurs are just so much bigger than any image credits them and I was happy to stand there all day and take them in. Unfortunately we were on a tight schedule and, with a deep, contented sigh we were soon back on the path.
Next the lake opens up and here is where you find the numerous aquatic creatures like ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, labyrinthodonts, dicynodonts, teleosaurs and numerous pterodactyls.
Far too soon our time was up and we made our way back to the gate where the security guard was waiting. He took one look at my huge grin and asked ‘enjoy yourself did you?’
Yes…yes I did!