Geoscience

Cambrian crinoids (Sea lillies) from western Queensland.

Most visitors to the Queensland Museum enjoy encounters with our prehistoric beasts, including Australia's best-known dinosaurs — Muttaburrasaurus, Minmi, Rhoetosaurus and Austrosaurus; the Earth's largest-ever lizards and marsupials; the oldest Australian tetrapods; the largest marine predator of all time, Kronosaurus queenslandicus; and a model of the Lark Quarry trackway, which reveals the footprints of hundreds of stampeding dinosaurs. Queensland has the most comprehensive fossil heritage in Australia, dating back 1700 million years.

The Geosciences Section is committed to recovering this record in the rocks and telling the story of our past. The Museum is at the forefront of Australian palaeontology, with a strong focus on basic palaeontology. This basic knowledge of species that inhabited the region through different geological ages has many applications for science and industry including resource prospecting, climate projection and land management.

Find out more about fossils, dinosaurs and geology. Download the fact sheets from our Inquiry Centre.