Finding fossils of marine monsters

SOME of the citizen scientists who found the fossils on display at the Australian National Surfing Museum’s new exhibition gathered last week to discuss their discoveries.

Fossil Beach exhibits the remains of some extremely old marine creatures, including megalodons and a predatory whale only identified relatively recently.

Local surfer Staumn Hunder found a 25 millionyear- old skull of a whale later identified as Janjucetus Hunderi at Jan Juc during the late 1990s.

Fossil Beach includes the first 3D printed replica of the original skull, which is now held behind tight security at the Melbourne Museum.

Yestin Griffiths, Yumi Morishita, Phil Mullaly and Charles Brooks are among the people whose findings are part of the exhibition, and the quartet was presented with tokens of appreciation in a ceremony at the ANSM last week.

Mr Griffiths also found part of a Janjucetus Hunderi skeleton at Jan Juc, and said the age of the rock along the coast was crucial in recognising its potential to contain fossils.

“From Breamlea, really, all the way down to Bells Beach and Point Addis is all a similar sort of age, 20-26 million years old, where it was all developed from layers of sand being laid down in the ocean. Where there are layers of sand, there’s obviously going to be creatures that are covered by it.”

He said finding fossils took some practice. “It’s not every time that you find something – it’s one of those things where you’ve got to try to get your eye in, it’s almost like gem hunting. Once you get your eye in, you can start to find something.”