SYDNEY: A trove of fossilised dinosaur footprints has been found on a slab of rock gathering dust inside an Australian school, scientists said on Wednesday.

The rock went largely unnoticed for 20 years until the school, in Queensland’s rural Banana shire, asked paleontologist Anthony Romilio to examine a cluster of three-toed track marks.

Romilio said the slab was stamped with dozens of fossilised footprints dating to the early Jurassic period some 200 million years ago. It showed “one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints” ever documented in Australia, he said.

“It’s an unprecedented snapshot of dinosaur abundance, movement and behaviour from a time when no fossilised dinosaur bones have been found in Australia,” said Romilio, from the University of Queensland. “Significant fossils like this can sit unnoticed for years, even in plain sight.

“It’s incredible to think that a piece of history this rich was resting in a schoolyard all this time.” Coal miners dug up the slab in 2002 and, noticing the unusual footprints, gifted it to a school in the small town of Biloela, where it was eventually displayed in the foyer.

The rock sat there until researchers started asking around for any dinosaur fossils discovered in the area. “Some of the teachers thought this was a replica rather than the real thing,” Romilio said. “Everyone didn’t quite realise what they actually have. “They definitely knew it was a dinosaur footprint. But not the level of detail that a researcher like myself would go into.”

Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2025