ANCIENT BEASTS OF OUR SHORES
While the Surf Coast is world famous for its surf breaks and beaches, it also holds key evidence to Australia’s prehistoric marine past. Researchers and citizen scientists are shining a new light on the coastline — a light uncovering life beneath the ocean across millions of years, writes W
ALKING along the rocky Jan Juc coastline five years ago, Philip Mullaly never envisioned he would be on the cusp of a discovery of a lifetime.
Scanning the shore for signs of ancient life, the Ocean Grove local noticed a rock with a shining glint — a quarter of a tooth.
“I jumped on the boulder, and slowly took it out, it was in pristine condition,” Mr Mullaly said.
A few weeks later, he went back to the rock and was surprised to find another.
With the feeling he was on to something special, Mr Mullaly spent the following year returning to the site, collecting more teeth.
The assemblage of teeth, around 7cm long, were later classified to come from the same animal — Carcharocles angustidens.
The prehistoric megatoothed shark roamed the sea around 25 million years ago as an apex predator, and could grow to more than 9m — nearly twice the size of great whites.
The rare fossil set was the first of its kind found in Australia, and only the third worldwide.
After alerting Museums Victoria, Mr Mullaly, along with palaeontologists Dr Erich Fitzgerald and Tim Ziegler, led a team on two expeditions to the site of the original tooth in 2017-18.
Despite the challenging conditions created by the tides, they dug out the entire boulder, collecting more than 40 teeth, with most belonging to Carcharocles angustidens.
With it were a dozen smaller teeth, which Mr Ziegler said was evidence smaller sharks dined on the giant after its death.
“The Jan Juc find was not only a national first, but also included unique evidence that ancient sixgill sharks scavenged the predatory giant’s carcass on the seabed,” Mr Ziegler said.
The sharks still patrol the Victorian coast, eating the remains of other animals.
More than two years on from the discovery, Mr Ziegler continues to investigate Carcharocles angustidens and the factors that may have caused its extinction.
AS the waves smash against the high cliffs, the Surf Coast constantly reveals important insights into the coastline’s evolution over millions of years.
“Most fossils on the Surf Coast are eroding out of the shore platforms, right under your feet where you walk along the beach,” Mr Ziegler said.
“There’s this constant potential for discovery that is very different to say going back 30km to a paddock with lots of soil and grass.”
Jan Juc is a particularly important fossil locality — it even has its own fossil, the Janjucetus.
A local surfer came across the 25 million-year-old skull in the 1990s, which Dr Fitzgerald labels as one of the most significant fossil whale discoveries.
“This find really shifted our thinking on the origin of baleen whales, the largest animals that have ever lived,” Dr Fitzgerald said.
“It showed us that the earliest baleen whales were not gentle giants, but were relatively tiny, ferocious predators, only about 4m long.”
Dr Fitzgerald and his team are currently working on a decade-long mission of discovery along the coastline from Geelong to Ocean Grove, to 13th Beach to Bells Beach.
They are searching for clues about the deep history of Australia’s marine life including its whales, sharks, dolphins and other sea life.
“Fossil discoveries here are extraordinary, but it’s the least well-known feature of this region. Our 10-year mission hopes to change that,” he said.
FINDING teeth, jaws, and bones in the cliffs might help to solve the riddle of evolution, Dr Fitzgerald said.
“The things we’re learning are astonishing. We’ve found whale fossils that don’t look anything like whales that live today, and not even like their prehistoric relatives,” he said.
“The Surf Coast is one of the frontiers of palaeontology in Australia, and indeed the world.”
Luck, a good eye and persistence were some key factors to finding fossils, Mr Ziegler said.
“It’s quiet exhausting, you might go out for an entire day and only walk 2km and find nothing,” he said.
“There’s no guarantee you’re going to have a good day.”
But whether it was seeing something jutting out from a cliff or cracking a rock to see a fossil inside, Mr Ziegler said the thrill never subsided.
“It might be 100 million years since it last saw sunlight, and there it is in your hand,” he said.
Although exciting, Mr Ziegler said fossil hunting was not for the fainthearted. “You’ve got hi high unstable cli cliffs, rogue wav waves and high tides tides,” he said. “F “For anyone who w wants to have a walk an and a look, be sensible an and safe.”
PARTS
ARTS of a ancient whale skulls, ear bo bones and vertebrae tb are j just t some rare fossils Mr Mullaly has found during his past decade combing the Surf Coast.
Despite it taking him a couple of years to find his first fossil, the adrenaline rush from that discovery was enough to get him hooked.
“Even finding the smallest tooth, it’s just fantastic,” he said. “The greatest fossil site is down on the Surf Coast — there is nothing really like it anywhere else in Australia.”
Another local familiar with the coastline is passionate bone excavator and surfer Yestin Griffiths.
While rocks and minerals have always sparked his interest, it was not until a family beach trip in 2008, when he found a 26 million-year-old whale vertebrae, that he really became a fossil hunter.
“My wife Jenny was taking the kids back to the car and I went to go pick up my backpack and directly underneath was a fossil,” Mr Griffiths said.
“I was completely blown away — I’d thought I found a dinosaur.”
The Drysdale resident has uncovered hundreds of fossils, including eight he considers significant.
For the past three years, Mr Griffiths has volunteered with Museums Victoria, helping to extract and study the fossils he has found.
He also regularly shares his finds on Facebook through his “Fossil Friday” posts to inform others about the treasures found on the Surf Coast.
Dr Fitzgerald said people such as Mr Mullaly and Mr Griffiths were the “unsung heroes” of palaeontology.
“It’s through the actions of people placing fossils in the care of the museum that we’ve gone on to find their scientific significance,” he said.
But Dr Fitzgerald said the full tale of Surf Coast fossils was yet to be told.
He recalled a local alerting him to a large boulder believed to consist of multiple whale bones in 2011.
By the time Dr Fitzgerald could get to the site — less than 48 hours later — it was completely buried in sand.
“Almost 10 years on, it hasn’t been exposed,” he said.
“The most exciting discoveries are still to be found out there.
“The next rock you walk past might hold a new chapter of the history of life on earth.”