Lobsters from Gunn Point....100 thousand years old : Crustaceans, Squid, Shellfish

Mud

Took Shark Girl and the mudskippas to Gunn Point for a few days camping. The beach was awesome and the weather perfect.

We were looking for shells one day when we found a fossil. That was way exciting and Shark Girl and me kept looking and finding more.

Turns out most of them are Mud Lobsters. About 100k years old. But we also found petrified wood, fossilised shellfish and a fossilised crab claw. So cool!!!!

From what we could find out, thousands of years ago Gunn Point was turned upside down by a cataclysmic cyclone. Killled everything in the area and covered them in mud. The area was a mangrove swamp and the nutrient rich mud contained the right substances to make fossils. Awesome!!

Check out the pics. And that crab claw may look fragile but when you pick it up you realise its solid stone.

fishfanatic · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:10 am Post subject:

What a great find... :applause:

tezza1 · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:54 am Post subject:

Cool!

rossco · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:28 am Post subject:

There is also a spot on the Daly with similar looking "fossils" The samples I have found look like a cross between a redclaw and a cherabin. It looks like the area they are on the Daly is part of a very old river course that is slowly being exposed as the river widens. There are not as many as there were 20 years ago as they are slowly being washed in. What is peculiar about them is that they are not true fossils in that when you slice them there is only rock (clay I assume) below the surface. They are very hard and a diamond blade is needed to cut them. They are often shaped like a foot ball and this is probably caused by the rolling effect of tides and wet season run off.

Matt Flynn · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 12:07 pm Post subject:

Great post :mrgreen:

100,000 years time on the Daly, fossilised Nils Masters :grin:

Fish'n Chick · Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:16 pm Post subject:

Matt Flynn wrote:

100,000 years time on the Daly, fossilised Nils Masters :grin:

That'll keep the scientists guessing :lolpoint:

Might totally stuff up the theory of evolution.

Mud · Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:39 pm Post subject:

cheers Fishfanatic, Tezza, Matty and Fishnchick

Rossco thanks for putting up the pics! Really interesting to see how the river has eroded your specimens. They are the same creature as the ones at Gunn Point (I can tell from the shape and texture of the claws and anyway I am now a self professed expert on the matter lol). Its a mud lobster or "Thalasina Anomala". I found another article that thought they were only about 10k years old. Hmmmm I'm sure its wrong. They must be far more ancient and interesting than that!

Anyway we're gonna keep looking for them cause its more fun than sitting at home watching reruns of Friends!

And who knows....maybe we'll find the fossilised remains of a giant flesh eating Pleistocene barramundi with armour plated sides, a spiral horn and talloned vestigal limbs in order to roam the prehistoric swamp in search of unwary dinosaurs to boof!!........and whats the bet those dinosaurs look like big stoopid nilseys....

Cheers
Mud

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