32 SCIENCE NEWS | January 29, 2022
ALL: M.R. MCCURRYET AL/SCIENCE ADVANCES2022SCIENCE VISUALIZED
A new trove of thousands of insect,
plant and other fossils offers an
unprecedented snapshot of Australia’s
wetter, forest-dominated past.
The fossils were found at a site
called McGraths Flat in southeastern
Australia, vertebrate paleontologist
M atthew McCurry and colleagues
report January 7 in Science Advances.
Long ago, much of Australia was car-
peted with rainforests. Then, during
the Miocene Epoch, about 23 million to
5 million years ago, Earth underwent a
climatic upheaval. For Australia, that
meant drying out, with shrubs, grasses
and deserts expanding into once-lush
territory.
McGraths Flat, which is located in
New South Wales, formed during that
transition, between 16 million and
11 million years ago. Now shrubland,
the site was part of a temperate for-
est around a small lake, says McCurry,
of the Australian Museum Research
Institute in Sydney.
The fossils, including of a parasitoid
wasp (top) and fern leaf (middle), were
encased within layers of an iron-rich
mineral called goethite, preserving the
remains in astonishing detail. Scanning
electron microscopy let the team zoom
in on some fossils, including of a crane
fly ( bottom left), revealing the units,
or ommatidia, of its compound eye
( bottom right). — Carolyn GramlingRare fossils preserve
Australia’s wet history1 mm1 cm5 mm 50 μmSee fossils from Australia’s McGraths Flat at bit.ly/SN_McGrathsFlat