There are places where fossils are aplenty, and they’re not too far from home. Join us in a hunt for traces of the past with Justin Baker on the shores of Beaumaris Bay in suburban Melbourne.
I’ve loved fossils for as long as I can remember. Since I was very young, my family used to go fossil hunting. Even now, I get a buzz out of finding something so ancient that it’s remained unseen for millions of years. Fossils are the ultimate time travellers. They have defied the odds and managed to survive for an unimaginable length of time.
Most Australian fossil sites are in remote locations, requiring hours of driving along long, dusty, unsurfaced roads. However, only 30km or so from Melbourne’s CBD lies one of Australia’s most important locations for fossils: the Beaumaris Bay Fossil Site.
In this rugged coastal area, the weathered sandstone cliffs have yielded a remarkable collection of fossils, including molluscs, sharks’ teeth, and even occasional mammal and bird specimens.
Professor Tim Flannery calls it “one of the most significant fossil sites in Australia”.
So exactly how old are the fossils found at Beaumaris Bay?
Based on a combination of dating from microfossils in the sandstone and isotopic dating of the overlying rock bed, the Beaumaris specimens are estimated to be 5-6 million years old. On the geological timescale, this is referred to as the late Miocene or early Pliocene.
The cliffs themselves are orange and red, due to iron oxide from volcanic activity at a much earlier time.
Top fossil-hunting tips
You need to keep a few things to keep in mind when visiting Beaumaris Bay.
Be prepared. It’s quite rocky, so sturdy, waterproof shoes are needed to clamber over rocks. Sun protection is important, along with containers or small bags to put fossils in.
The cliffs themselves can be quite dangerous. It’s much safer to stay near the shore.
Keep an eye on the tides. The beach is only fully accessible around low tide. More adventurous fossil hunters have great success while snorkelling and scuba-diving offshore.
You don’t need any specialised tools like picks, and especially not dynamite! Digging is not permitted. Almost all the fossils are found lying on the beach or in the shallows among the rocks – they rarely need to be broken out of anything.
Fabulous finds
The most common fossil is a species of sea urchin or echinoid, known formally as Lovenia woodsii. Once you have the starfish-like pattern fixed in your mind, they are relatively easy to find – sometimes in quite large numbers. The colour differences between specimens can vary quite dramatically.
It’s not uncommon to find fossilised whale bone. It looks much like fossilised wood, is very dense, usually dark brown in colour, and has a grain running in one direction. Whale bone finds are usually fragments, so it can be hard to work out where they are from anatomically.
If you know what to look for, you can also find ear bones from various species of extinct whales and dolphins. These are slightly unusual-looking, nodule-shaped objects.
It’s also quite common to find pipe-shaped rocks. These are roughly cylindrical in shape and can be completely hollow on the inside.
The consensus is that they are the fossilised casts of burrows from mud lobsters. When the surrounding rock hardens over a very long period, iron oxide often leaches into the casts as well. This gives them a distinct metallic appearance.
Friendly “found anything interesting?” conversation often arises as you pass others on the beach. I hear one of the most sought-after specimens for amateurs are fossilised shark teeth.
While they are hard to find nowadays, fossilised shark teeth have been identified from at least 20 different species. The most common ones are probably from the extinct white shark (Carcharodon hastalis).
I’ve always wanted to find a serrated tooth from the truly enormous megalodon shark (Carcharocles megalodon). Recent estimates suggest the largest megalodon was up to 16m long and weighed 50 tonnes. Megalodon teeth are also proportionally huge at around 10cm in length!
To help identify all these different types of specimens, grab a copy of the free online handbook from Museums Victoria, titled Fossils of Beaumaris by Erich Fitzgerald and Rolf Schmidt.
Citizen science in action
If you find a surprising fossil while searching the beach, be sure to report it to Museums Victoria. Many years ago, a friend and I were exploring the tidal rocky zone at Beaumaris Bay when he found a fossilised bone. It was quite chunky and seemed to come from a mammal.
My friend made an appointment to speak to someone at Melbourne Museum, and a few weeks later we excitedly headed there to present our find.
The palaeontologist quickly assessed it as a seal bone and thanked my friend for his ‘donation’. It was duly tagged and then added to a large collection of other finds on a big, slide-out steel drawer.
About 20 years later, a new academic paper about early Australian seals was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. I was delighted to see my friend acknowledged for his contribution. That’s citizen science in action!
Rare finds
While I haven’t managed to find anything very rare at Beaumaris (yet!), others have discovered an ever-increasing array of specimens. Ben Francischelli showcased many of these in his Prehistoric Bayside exhibition in mid-2024. (If you missed the exhibition, it’s still available online as a virtual tour.)
These include:
A huge, 30cm-long tooth from a killer sperm whale. The whale was estimated to have been about 18m long and weighed 40 tonnes!
The jawbone of the extinct bird Pelagornis, which had a 6m wingspan – more than twice the wingspan of an albatross. Pelagornis had unusual bony projections along its beak instead of teeth.
The jawbone pf the extinct bird Pelagornis. Credit: Ben Francischelli
The bones of the marsupial Zygomaturus, a Miocene megafauna that looked somewhat like a rhinoceros. Adults weighed more than 500kg.
Your own fossil adventure
We are so lucky to have the Beaumaris Bay site on our doorstep. I have taken groups of friends down here over summer for many years now. It’s a great experience spending a few hours exploring along the rock pools. If you’re in Melbourne, you can do the same.
In other parts of Australia, you might visit Point Peron near Perth, Woolshed Creek near Canberra or Fossil Cove near Hobart. Just be sure to check the rules about handling fossils in the area.
You never know what you might find!
Justin Baker is an avid citizen scientist. His article on astrophotography at home appeared last issue.