Collections

The Queensland Museum Geosciences collection contains over 8 million rock, mineral and fossil specimens. The main collection comprises three individual collections, all of which hold significant representations of the state's amazing geological and palaeontological past.

The Queensland Museum collection, comprising of approximately 2 million specimens, contains some of Australia's best known dinosaurs and marine reptiles: "Elliot" the sauropod, Muttaburrasaurus, Minmi, Rhoetosaurus, the Richmond Pliosaur and the largest marine predator of all time, Kronosaurus queenslandicus to name just a few. You can also find earth's largest-ever lizards and marsupials; the oldest Australian tetrapods; and a model of the Lark Quarry trackway, which reveals the footprints of hundreds of stampeding dinosaurs.

The University of Queensland collection came into our charge in 1999, and is an amazing research collection with approximately 5 million specimens. It also contains an extraordinary mineral collection which has fantastic representative specimens from not only Queensland but also the world. It's meteorite collection is also one not to be missed.

The Geological Survey of Queensland collection was the last addition, with us becoming custodians in 2003. It is a collection of mostly invertebrate and locality based specimens and gives us vital information regarding Queensland's geology, both past and present.

Prior to 2004, these three collections were housed in three separate localities. The Queensland Museum collection at South Bank, the University of Queensland collection at Pinjarra Hills and the Geological Survey of Queensland collection in Zillmere. During 2004-5, a major project was initiated within the Geosciences Program to relocate all three collections and all Geoscience labs and offices to a new offsite storage facility in Hendra. The relocation of 8 million specimens, including extremely fragile and scientifically valuable material was daunting and required a great deal of thought and effort, however the result has been truly spectacular and allowed better efficiency for management of the collections.