Rosewood History
A Dinosaur Lived at Lanefield
One hundred and forty-five million years ago, the various swamps near Rosewood and Harrisville, and the expanse of flat country extending to Grandchester and beyond, was what was known to early geologists as “Walloon Lake”, over which huge dinosaurs roamed, living on the vegetation.
When John Mitchell Bruce opened the Lanefield Colliery near Rosewood in 1918, he took the first steps in unearthing a discovery of great scientific importance.
Around 10 years later, the miners, while clearing the thick seams of coal, started noticing depressions in the shale into which the upper layers of earth had been forced. They were unearthing fossilised footprints.
The footprints were most interesting and belonged to a sub-group of the Ornithischian dinosaurs (an extinct clade of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs, characterised by a pelvic structure superficially similar to that of birds). A sub-group of the Ornithischian had three-toed feet, like some gigantic fowl, and understandably, these impressions were first reported by the miners as the tracks of some colossal bird.
By 1933, Major Fred Evans (mine manager) and Mr. John Bruce and Mr. Arthur J. Loveday (owners), were keenly curious about the growing number of discoveries being made by the miners. They came to the awareness that these “bird tracks” should be brought to the attention of the scientists, so when they heard that the Chief Government Geologist, Lionel Clive Ball, was to visit the nearby Ardath mine, they asked Norman Bade (manager at the time) to tell Mr. Ball about the giant “bird tracks” in the roof at the Lanefield Colliery.
Another page in geological history was about to open.
Up until then very little was known about dinosaurs in Australia. Some small bones found in North Queensland, one joint of a claw found in Victoria, and a tooth and a small bone in New South Wales, were all that we had to record their presence here. Then in 1926 Mr. Heber Longman, Director of the Queensland Museum, described a giant form which they had assembled from a collection of bones found at Durham Downs, near Roma. The Rhoetosaurus brownei, was estimated to be about 40 feet in length. Some vertebrae of an Austrosaurus Mckillopi came to light in 1932, found by station overseer Mr Henry Burgoyne Wade on Clutha Station in north-west Queensland. It was larger and probably about 50 feet long.
The tracks and footprints of these giants were impressed in mud and then preserved by a complex process (lithification) whereby freshly deposited loose grains of sediment were compacted under pressure, causing the connate fluid be expelled and converting the material into rock.
These fossils provide valuable evidence of life in past ages, and in the absence of actual organic remains, help to fill in gaps in paleontological records. The discovery at Lanefield was the first time that evidence of their presence had been found in a coal deposit and, for that reason, the discovery was significant.
In December 1933, Lionel Ball, published an article about his visit to Lanefield in the Queensland Mining Journal.
It is the duty of the geologist to record any findings of this nature. While showing me over Anderson’s Lanefield Extended pit, the Manager (Mr. Norman Bade), informed me that bird tracks were to be seen in the roof of the coal seam worked in the Bruce’s Lanefield colliery, which lies 2.5 miles west of Rosewood railway station; and during this afternoon we accompanied the Manager of Lanefield (Major Fred Evans), on an underground tour of inspection in the workings.
Directly above the coal is a 7ft. bed of shale with 6in. lenses of clay-ironstone, and above that again about 20ft. of white sandstone that underlies 9in. shale and a 3ft. 6in. coal seam. It was in the main dip that most of the tracks were seen-dozens in all-but others were seen in the road towards the Extended.
Many of the places have been open for years and the shale consequently is too friable to permit of a slab being removed. The impressions are remarkably uniform in shape, all having a longer central toe and two slightly shorter ones branching off from the base at angles of 45 on either side. The size is extremely variable, but commonly the length of the central toe is 10in. (a maximum of 18in.), with the others reaching 8in., and they have a width of about 2in. The opposite sides of the toes are roughly parallel contracting abruptly towards the end, but the edges are not particularly sharp, and there is no sign of jointing, and little if any pad impression.
The whole cast projects below the roof (originally into coal) a variable amount, but never more than ½in. In a few instances two imprints pointing in different directions have been superimposed. At only one place did any two of the imprints appear to track-these being two 18in. specimens 5ft. apart.
The resemblance of these structures to the casts of bird tracks is striking, but, in the absence of evidence of bird life in the Jurassics, it would be safer to refer the imprints to three-toed dinosaurs.
This article awakened much interest and several parties visited the Lanefield mine, taking photos and making plaster casts.
On Sunday 17th June 1934, Mr. Ball, in company with the Mr. Longman, examined the tracks. On the following Friday plaster casts of the prints were taken by a party of geologists from the Queensland University, headed by Professor H. Richards and including Dr. W. J. Bryan and Dr. F. W. Whitehouse.
They estimated that the dinosaur which made these tracks was at least 40ft. in length. The prints, which were 20in. long, resembled the impressions made in mud by a gigantic domestic fowl. It had powerful hind legs, rudimentary forelegs like a kangaroo, and walked more erect. It favoured the land rather than the water. The reptiles lived in the Jurassic age when the coal deposits were laid down by pre-historic swamp waters.
At a meeting of the Royal Society of Queensland on Monday 25th June 1934, the discovery was discussed. It was stated that, “The fossilised footprints observed in the Lanefield district, near Ipswich, represented a new type of dinosaur for Australia.”
Professor Richards said that the name of Mr. L. C. Ball, the Government geologist, should be linked with the discovery. Congratulations on the significant discovery by Mr. Ball were expressed by Professor H. C. Richards. Dr. E. O. Marks, Dr. F. W. Whitehouse, and Mr. Longman.
Mr. Ball made another visit to the Lanefield mine on 12th August. Norman Bade was now deputy manager there.
My immediate thought after researching this story was, Well, how about that? My next thought was, Why weren’t the the men of the Lanefield Colliery also attributed to this discovery? Credit should be given where credit is due. It seems to me that this is an example of one of life’s injustices; when those who hold an academic rank are given the entitlement to bask in the glory of the achievements of others as if they were entirely their own.
Below are two extracts from the Queensland Mining Journal.
Queensland Government Mining Journal, 16th July 1934, page 224.
Queensland Government Mining Journal, 15th September 1934, page 297.
© Jane Schy, 2024