Australian Age of Dinosaurs facts for kids
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AAOD Reception Centre with bronze Australovenator wintonensis (Banjo)
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| Established | 2002 |
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| Location | Lot 1, Dinosaur Drive, The Jump-Up Dark-Sky Sanctuary, Winton, Queensland |
| Type | Museum of Natural History |
| Key holdings | Australovenator wintonensis "Banjo"; Diamantinasaurus matildae "Matilda" and "Alex"; Wintonotitan wattsi "Clancy"; Savannasaurus elliotorum "Wade"; Ferrodraco lentoni "Butch"; the Snake Creek tracksite; Confractosuchus sauroktonos "Chookie" |
| Collections | Cretaceous Period |
| Visitors | 59,148 (2021) |
The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Ltd. (AAOD) is a special organization in Winton, Queensland, Australia. It was started in 2002 by David and Judy Elliott. This group runs the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History.
The museum is famous for its yearly dinosaur digs. These digs happen in the Winton Formation area of Western Queensland. It also has Australia's busiest lab for preparing dinosaur fossils all year round. Since 2005, the AAOD Museum has gathered the biggest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils in the world. It holds important original fossils of several dinosaurs. These include Diamantinasaurus matildae ("Matilda") and Savannasaurus elliottorum ("Wade"). It also has Australovenator wintonensis ("Banjo"), which is Australia's most complete skeleton of a meat-eating dinosaur. Other important fossils are Ferrodraco lentoni, the first flying reptile (pterosaur) found in the Winton Formation, and Confractosuchus sauroktonos.
The museum is open to visitors every day from April to October. From November to March, it is open six days a week, closing only on Sundays. In 2019, the museum's location became Australia's first International Dark-Sky Sanctuary. This means it's a great place to see the stars because there's very little light pollution.
Contents
Where is the Museum?
The AAOD Museum sits on top of a large flat-topped hill called 'The Jump-Up'. This hill is 24 kilometers (about 15 miles) south-east of Winton. It is also 600 kilometers (about 370 miles) south-west of Townsville.
If you are coming from Longreach, you drive north-west on the Landsborough highway for about 164 kilometers. Then, you turn left onto Dinosaur Drive. From there, it's another 11 kilometers on a paved road to reach the museum. If you are towing a caravan with a small car, there's a special area at the bottom of the hill where you can unhitch it.
How the Museum Started
In 1999, David Elliott found a fossilized bone while looking after sheep on his farm near Winton. At the time, it was the largest dinosaur bone ever found in Australia. Later, experts identified it as part of a giant leg bone (femur). It belonged to a plant-eating dinosaur called a sauropod. This dinosaur lived in the Winton area about 95 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period.
After finding more fossils, David and Judy Elliott held a meeting in Winton in August 2002. They wanted to create a dinosaur museum in Winton. In October 2002, 'Australian Age of Dinosaurs Incorporated' officially started. It was a non-profit group. Its goal was to keep finding dinosaurs and preparing their fossils from the Winton Formation.
With help from many volunteers, the group began to build a major tourist attraction. They wanted to make sure these amazing discoveries would be kept safe forever and shown to the public.
Big Discoveries
In March 2005, David Elliott found a new dinosaur site on his farm. A dig there in September uncovered the remains of one of Australia's most complete sauropod skeletons. They found 17 pallets of fossil bones stuck in fine siltstone rock. This dinosaur was nicknamed "Wade." The name honored Dr. Mary Wade, an Australian paleontologist who passed away during the dig.
In late 2005, a partial arm bone (humerus) of a sauropod was found near Winton. This led to more digs by the AAOD Museum. They found two dinosaur skeletons together. One was a sauropod, and the other was a meat-eating dinosaur (theropod). The sauropod was nicknamed "Matilda," and the theropod was named "Banjo." These names honor Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson and his famous poem "Waltzing Matilda."
Building the Museum
In mid-2006, David and Judy Elliott opened a temporary fossil preparation place in their shed. It was called the "Prep Shed." Here, staff and volunteers worked to clean and preserve the fossils. They started with "Wade" and then worked on "Banjo" and "Matilda" as more bones were found. This work continued for almost three years with the help of over 100 volunteers.
In September 2006, Peter and Carol Britton donated 1,400 hectares of their land, 'The Jump-Up', to AAOD. This land was chosen as the future museum site. Over the next three years, money was raised to fence the new site. The Winton Shire Council built a new gravel road to the top of 'The Jump-Up'. The Queensland Government also gave $500,000 for a fossil preparation building, staff homes, and water and power.
The old "Prep Shed" closed, and all fossils and equipment moved to 'The Jump-Up' in early 2009. The new buildings were opened to the public in July 2009 by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.
In 2008, the organization changed its structure to become a non-profit company called Australian Age of Dinosaurs Ltd. (AAODL). This new company created a Society of Members to continue the support work.
On January 25, 2024, David Elliott was named Australia’s Local Hero by the Prime Minister, The Hon Anthony Albanese MP. This was for his work in bringing dinosaur tourism (palaeotourism) back to Australia.
Museum Buildings
The AAOD Museum is being built in three stages. Each stage is in a different part of 'The Jump-Up'.
Stage 1 is finished. It includes a temporary fossil preparation building, two staff cottages, and places for volunteers to stay. Stage 2 is also complete. It has the museum's reception center and a public car park. Stage 3 will be the main AAOD Museum of Natural History. Its plans are ready, and outdoor galleries have started to be built. The main museum building still needs funding to be built.
Fossil Preparation Laboratory
The lab is about 500 meters (about 1,640 feet) from the reception center. Here, dinosaur fossils are prepared, preserved, and fixed. This work makes them ready for scientific study and display. The building has areas for storing unprepared fossils, prepared fossils, and a large area where staff and volunteers work. They carefully remove rock from the bones and make them strong.
Dinosaur fossils are often found in solid rock or covered in thick layers of ironstone. It takes a long time to chip away the rock. In the lab, workers use special tools to remove rock from the bones. They also fix, restore, and strengthen the fossils. They even sort tiny pieces of rock to find microfossils. Sometimes, they put bone fragments together like a jigsaw puzzle.
The museum invites people to help with this work. You can become an "honorary technician" by taking a 10-day fossil preparation course called 'Prep-A-Dino'.
Dinosaur Canyon Outpost and Outdoor Galleries
Dinosaur Canyon Outpost and Outdoor Galleries opened in April 2017. It was built with money from the government, private sponsors, and the museum's own funds. This new area has an Outpost building on a cliff overlooking Dinosaur Canyon. It also has a 300-meter (about 980 feet) elevated concrete walkway. This pathway winds through huge rocks and thick plants, like a treetop walk.
Five outdoor galleries are along the pathway. They show what life was like during the Cretaceous Period. Exhibits include the Dinosaur Stampede, Pterodactylus Family, Kunbarrasaurus ieversi, Death in the Billabong, and Valley of the Cycads.
The March of the Titanosaurs Exhibition
The March of the Titanosaurs exhibition opened in May 2021. This building was made to hold a 55-meter (about 180 feet) long fossil trackway. This trackway was moved to 'The Jump-Up' between 2018 and 2021. It shows the footprints of sauropods, theropods, ornithopods, crocodiles, turtles, and lungfish.
Dinosaur Fossils
How Old Are They?
Most of the dinosaur fossils found by the AAOD Museum are from the early Late Cretaceous period. They are about 98 to 95 million years old. Scientists figure this out by using a method called radiometric dating. They look at tiny grains called zircons found in the sandstones of the Winton Formation. By measuring special elements inside these zircon grains, they can tell how old the rocks and the fossils are.
The Winton Formation
The Winton Formation is a layer of rock that tells us about an ancient landscape. It was a huge network of river floodplains. These rivers flowed north into the Eromanga Sea during the late Albian to Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous period. This rock layer can be up to 1.2 kilometers (about 0.75 miles) thick in southwest Queensland.
The Winton Formation has given us more large dinosaur remains than all other parts of Australia combined. This makes it the country's most important dinosaur fossil area.
The Great Australian Basin
The Great Australian Basin covers almost one-fifth of Australia. Over 30 million years, this basin was flooded by inland seas five times. The Winton Formation is part of the Eromanga Basin. It is the youngest layer of rock laid down in that basin. This land-based deposit ended 30 million years of ocean covering the area. It brought a new time when the basin became a place of lush forests and floodplains. These areas had many conifer trees, complex river systems, and a lot of dinosaurs.
Over the last 98 million years, the Eromanga Basin has changed a lot. It has gone through periods of deep weathering, erosion, and uplift. This process has brought the fossil-rich marine rocks to the surface, especially north of Winton. These rocks were laid down between 125 and 100 million years ago. This process continues to reveal the fossils of Australia's Cretaceous dinosaurs throughout the Winton Formation.
The Jump-Up
'The Jump-Up' is a large flat-topped plateau. It is about 270 meters (about 885 feet) above sea level and stands 75 meters (about 246 feet) higher than the land around it. It is part of a larger group of hills called the Vindex Range. Like much of the Winton area, 'The Jump-Up' is made of rocks from the Winton Formation, which are about 95-98 million years old.
The top of 'The Jump-Up' is solid rock, up to 12 meters (about 39 feet) thick. This hard rock has stopped erosion from wearing it away. The top of 'The Jump-Up' shows what the land looked like before a long period of deep weathering started. This weathering wore away the surrounding countryside.
'The Jump-Up' is home to many different animals, including lizards, echidnas, and over 100 types of birds. It also has unique plants, like rainforest fig trees. These trees have survived in the moist, sheltered gorges. They are leftover plants from a time when inland Australia had a much wetter climate. In 2019, 'The Jump-Up' was named Australia's first International Dark-Sky Sanctuary. This means it has very dark, starry nights, protected in a remote location.
How You Can Get Involved
Prep-A-Dino Experience
The Australian Age of Dinosaurs has a program where the public can help prepare fossils. It's called the Prep-A-Dino program. Cleaning a dinosaur bone is a long job. It means carefully chipping away layers of stone to show the dinosaur bone inside.
The museum offers a training session and a tour before you start working on a dinosaur bone. The museum also has places to stay at Maloney Lodge as part of the Prep-A-Dino package. The lodge has five furnished rooms, a shared kitchen, and a fully equipped bathroom and laundry. Maloney Lodge was finished in 2010. It lets people working in the lab live at a real dinosaur museum.
After completing 10 days of training and preparation, you can become an "Honorary Technician." While the first 10 days cost money, once you are qualified, you only pay for a yearly one-day refresher course.
Dig-A-Dinosaur Experience
Since 2004, the museum has held dinosaur digs that people can join. These digs usually happen in late May and early June. There is a fee to join, which helps cover the costs of the dig and preparing the fossils found. The digs take place in the Mitchell grass downs area of Winton. They have found many dinosaur fossils, including some very important original ones. On the Elliott's property alone, 15 dinosaur sites have been found.
Researchers and Scientists
The AAOD fossil collection has attracted a lot of interest from paleontologists. These are scientists who study fossils. Many experts from Australia and other countries work closely with the museum's collection.
Dr. Alex Cook
Alex Cook is an expert who used to work at the Queensland Museum. He is known for his work on ancient sea creatures and early life forms in Queensland. Since 2004, Dr. Cook has been an Honorary Curator for the AAOD Museum Collection. He helps get and care for fossils that show Australia's major changes in life over time.
Dr. Scott Hocknull
Scott Hocknull is a Senior Curator at the Queensland Museum. In 2009, he was the main author of a paper that named three new Australian dinosaur species from the Winton Formation. These were Diamantinasaurus matildae, Australovenator wintonensis, and Wintonotitan wattsi. Dr. Hocknull is also leading new research at the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument near Winton.
Dr. Benjamin Kear
Benjamin Kear is a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is studying marine fossils in the AAOD Collection. These fossils include ancient sea reptiles, turtles, and fish. They were found near Winton Formation dinosaur bones. Dr. Kear's research will help identify these animals and understand the variety of sea life in the Eromanga Basin long ago.
Dr. Ada Klinkhamer
In August 2017, Ada Klinkhamer finished her PhD. Her research focused on the leg muscles and movement of sauropods, especially Diamantinasaurus matildae from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. She has published two papers from her research, both about Diamantinasaurus matildae.
Dr. Stephen McLoughlin
Stephen McLoughlin is a paleobotanist, a scientist who studies ancient plants. He has researched the fossil plants of the Winton Formation since the mid-1990s. The plant fossils from the Winton Formation are very important. They are the youngest major group of plant fossils from the Cretaceous period in Australia. This plant collection shows the change from cone-bearing plants (gymnosperms) to flowering plants (angiosperms) in Australia.
Adele Pentland
Adele Pentland is a student working on her PhD and a research helper at the AAOD Museum. She is studying Australian pterosaurs, which are flying reptiles. In October 2019, she scientifically described Australia's most complete pterosaur fossil. She named it Ferrodraco lentoni.
Dr. Stephen Poropat
Stephen Poropat is a postdoctoral researcher in paleontology. In 2015, he re-examined Diamantinasaurus matildae and Wintonotitan wattsi. In 2016, he scientifically described a new sauropod species, Savannasaurus elliottorum, which is one of Australia's most complete sauropod fossils. He also described the first sauropod skull ever found in Australia, linking it to Diamantinasaurus matildae. This skull is now on display at the AAOD Museum.
Travis Tischler
Travis Tischler is an Australian paleo-artist. He has worked closely with the AAOD Museum since 2006. Since 2009, he has been in charge of the museum's digital dinosaur reconstruction program. He uses digital modeling to create very detailed and accurate models of dinosaurs. By using CAT scans, MRI scans, and photogrammetry modeling, Travis can digitally rebuild dinosaur fossils into full skeletons. He studies how they moved and where their muscles attached. This helps him create accurate models of dinosaur bodies and how their skin might have looked.
Dr. Paul Upchurch and Dr. Philip Mannion
Paul Upchurch from University College London and Philip Mannion from Imperial College London have visited the AAOD Collection. They are working with Dr. Poropat and Dr. Hocknull. Their goal is to thoroughly re-examine Australia's Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs. They want to understand how Australia's sauropods are related to those found around the world.
Dr. Matt White
Matt White completed his PhD on how Australovenator wintonensis was built and how it moved. He has written several papers about new bones of Australovenator that have been found. His research includes studying how the skeleton moved to rebuild the muscles and tendons of Australovenator's arms and legs. Dr. White has also used CT scans of Australovenator and other important fossils from the AAOD Museum collection. These scans create 3D images used in publications and dinosaur reconstructions.
Future Plans
The AAOD Museum's third and final stage is to build a large, modern natural history museum. This museum will show the story of the Australian continent over the past 4.5 billion years. It will also highlight Australia's unique dinosaur history. The new museum building will include education facilities. It is planned for 2022, and the initial planning and design work is complete.
The AAOD Museum of Natural History will be 2 kilometers (about 1.2 miles) from the current Reception Centre. It will be located overlooking the plains below 'The Jump-Up'. The plans for the building include a floor space of 6,000 square meters (about 64,500 square feet). Of this, 1,800 square meters (about 19,375 square feet) will be for exhibitions. The rest of the space will be for public areas, a gift shop, a café, offices, a collection room, a lab, classrooms, and audio-visual facilities.
Other exhibitions are also being planned for the AAOD Museum. These include a series of outdoor galleries throughout the gorge of 'The Jump-Up'. These galleries will feature life-size bronze sculptures of Australia's dinosaurs and their ancient environment. Construction on the first of these is already underway.
Images for kids
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AAOD Reception Centre with bronze Australovenator wintonensis (Banjo)
