A quarter of a century ago, Ross and Jane Fargher opened the gates of their cattle station, Nilpena, to a team of palaeontologists to examine fossils found in the property’s rocky hills.<\/p>\n
So began a long love affair with the remote property in South Australia’s Flinders Ranges for US palaeontologist Mary Droser and her family.<\/p>\n
“These rocks capture the dawn of animal life,” Dr Droser said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And so imagine turning over a rock and having those fossils see the light of day for the first time in over half a billion years.<\/p>\n
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Mary Droser examines fossil beds at Nilpena. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“There is no day in my life that is nicer than sitting on a fossil bed \u2026 working on these crazy things that we uncover.”<\/p>\n
Those “crazy things” are fossils of soft-bodied marine organisms that existed before animals had skeletons, when the arid area 530 kilometres north of Adelaide was more ocean that outback.<\/p>\n
A fossil site unlike any other<\/p>\n
Since Ross Fargher uncovered the fossil site in the mid-1980s, Dr Droser and her team from the University of California, along with experts from the South Australian Museum, have excavated 40 ancient sea beds.<\/p>\n
The largest one, which they’ve focused on recently, is known as Fun Bed.<\/p>\n
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ABC reporter Kerry Staight joins Mary Droser at the largest of the fossil beds at Nilpena. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“As you look across the surface you can see lots of bumps and squiggles, and every inch of this bed is covered with the fossilised remains of organisms,” Dr Droser said.<\/p>\n
Some are familiar, like the poster child of the Ediacaran period, Dickinsonia, and South Australia’s state fossil emblem, Spriggina.<\/p>\n
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A Dickinsonia fossil preserved in sandstone at Nilpena, dating back more than half a billion years. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
Spriggina is named after Australian geologist Reg Sprigg, who discovered these types of fossils in the Ediacara Hills in 1946, inspiring the name of the Ediacaran period.<\/p>\n
Other fossils on Fun Bed are newer finds, including Obamus coronatus, named after former US president Barack Obama.<\/p>\n
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Fossils of Ikaria wariootia, believed to be one of humans’ earliest ancestors, were found at Nilpena in 2020. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“This guy here is called Quaestio simpsonorum, which has a question mark in the middle of it,” Dr Droser explained as she pointed to the fossil.<\/p>\n
“This was newly discovered on this bed and we have about 15 on this bed, and it’s totally whacky.”<\/p>\n
From childhood visitor to Harvard scholar<\/p>\n
Someone who has worked and played on these hills almost as long as Mary Droser is her son Ian Hughes, who started coming to Nilpena as a baby.<\/p>\n
“I love being out here. The people are family and also the science, there’s just so many fossils,” Mr Hughes said.<\/p>\n
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Ian Hughes has been visiting Nilpena since childhood. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“It’s sort of as close to aliens as you can get on studying things that actually existed on Earth, which is super cool.”<\/p>\n
Now 25, the Harvard University marine biology PhD student dedicates a good deal of his time to Earth’s ancient sea creatures including the wormlike Uncus dzaugisi, which he identified last year.<\/p>\n
“We’re really quite confident that it was an early ecdysozoan and so this is a member of a group of animals that includes things like insects and nematode worms, so a really exciting advanced fossil for the Ediacaran.”<\/p>\n
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Once covered by ancient seas, Nilpena Station is 530 kilometres north of Adelaide. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
As more rare rocks have been revealed, including what Dr Droser says are the fossilised remains of our oldest relative, researchers are gaining a much clearer view of the big picture.<\/p>\n
“We’re starting to understand how these communities functioned,” Dr Droser said.<\/p>\n
“Doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot more to do, but we’ve come a long way.”<\/p>\n
Mary Droser and her students use lasers to detect microfossils hidden in sandstone slabs from Nilpena. (ABC Landline: Kerry Staight)<\/p>\n
“So yes, I have no plan of ending in the very near future. I have a lot of great students who will continue to work here, because one day it will be very hard for me to make it up these hills.”<\/p>\n
But while Mary Droser’s work will continue, the farming family who invited her on to Nilpena are farewelling the property they’ve called home for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n
Lasting gift to science and the public<\/p>\n
In 2019, the Farghers sold two-thirds of the station to the South Australian government, which turned it into the Nilpena Ediacara National Park.<\/p>\n
“We were keen to not just sell it as a pastoral lease, because the next people that bought it may not be interested in fossils,” Ross Fargher said.<\/p>\n
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Ross and Jane Fargher opened Nilpena Station to scientists more than two decades ago. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“We thought it was very important to leave that legacy of protecting those fossils into the future.”<\/p>\n
And now, as the site attracts more attention, the Farghers are signing over the rest of the property to the government, which is extending the park.<\/p>\n
“It’ll probably hit home when we drive out with our last load of gear from the homestead at the end of the year. At the moment it still feels like it’s our place,” Mr Fargher said.<\/p>\n
“Jane and Ross are family \u2026 [it’s] very sad for us, but I think you have to look at the future and how things move ahead and what’s best for everybody,” Dr Droser said.<\/p>\n
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The Fun Bed at Nilpena is one of the richest Ediacaran fossil deposits in the world. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“You know it is wonderful to have this legacy of the park. This is their legacy.”<\/p>\n
It’s a legacy that is set to make it onto a very elite list.<\/p>\n
Nilpena is at the centre of a decade-long bid for the Flinders Ranges to make it onto UNESCO’s World Heritage List for its role in telling the story of the dawn of animal life.<\/p>\n
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Nilpena’s fossil beds with pathways allowing scientists and visitors to explore the ancient sea floor. (ABC: Carl Saville)<\/p>\n
“World Heritage is a really long process. I’m not sure how many of them I want to do in my lifetime,” SA National Parks program director Jason Irving said.<\/p>\n
“We started this one in 2016, and ideally in 2027, if all goes well, we will be on the World Heritage list.”<\/p>\n