An international team of scientists have developed a way help locate fossils of long-extinct animals.The models were developed for Australia but the researchers provide guideline on how to apply their approach to assist fossil hunting in other continents.
The research team made use of modelling techniques commonly used in ecology. They modeled past distribution of species, the geological suitability of fossil preservation and the likelihood of fossil discovery in the field. They applied their techniques to a range of Australian megafauna that became extinct over the last 50,000 years, such as the giant terror bird Genyornis, the rhino-sized wombat Diproton and the marsupial lion.
To produce the species distribution models of these long-extinct animals, the researchers used 'hindcasted global circulation models' to provide predicted temperature and rainfall for the deep past and matched this with the estimated ages of the fossils.
In the model they build a probability map for each of these layer -- the species distribution, the right sort of geological conditions for fossil formation and the ease of discovery. They combined each of these for an overall. The methods predict potential fossil locations across an entire continent which is useful to identify potential fossil areas far from already known sites. It's good exploration filter, after which remote-sensing approaches and fine-scale expert knowledge could complement the search.
The model showed areas south of Lake Eyre and weest of Lake Torrens in South Australia and a large area around Shark Bay, Western Australia and other areas in south-western Australia with a high potential to yield new megafauna fossils.
Source: PLOS ONE
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