GIANT WOMBAT BONES

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1945, Page 6

GIANT WOMBAT BONES

TN DRY LAKE BED. SYDNEY. June 29. On a recent visit to Central Australia members of a scientific reconnaissance expedition found that large sections of the ground in the dry bed. of Lake Callabonna trembeled like a mammoth jelly when, jumped upon—yet the earth crust was solid enough to walk on. Members of the expedition reached 1 Tibooburra (N.S.W.) this week. The weird phenomenon they described was I experienced in the vicinity of the mud i or mound, springs that are a feature i of the desert region, and where, as in : the lake the understrata is a boggy .mass of clay. Much of the crust is 'Composed of gypsum crystals and ■saline deposits. Other parts of the Take bed, which is 50 miles long by 12 'miles wide, were sufficiently hard to I support a utility truck. Members were the scientist leader, iMr. Harold Fletcher, palaeontologist oi the Australian Museum, Sydney; ; Mr. Frank Forster, of Tibooburra, who ;is intci'ested in the geology of lhe far I inland; and Mr. George Alder, of Waka ! Station, near the Queensland border. ! The principal object of the expedition was to search for remains of pre- ■ historic animals. 1 The expedition spokesman said: “We I'oimd the fossilised bones of two Diprotodons, or giant wombats, at one site in Ihe lake bed, and those of another elsewhere. “It was impossible to carry out extensive excavations in the little time available, and most of the bones unearthed were very brittle and badly weathered. They crumbled away when lifted. . “’Some valuable scientific data was obtained.” - The Diprotodon was the largest marsupial that the world has ever known. It was possibly larger than a full-grown rhinoceros. It stood about 6 feet high, and about 10 feet long.

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