The Ridge News has an interesting article on the turtles of Lightning Ridge: Fossil discovery throws new light on evolution
Here’s the first two paragraphs of the article:
Lightning Ridge palaeontologist Dr Elizabeth Smith has identified up to seven different types of fossil turtles at Lightning Ridge.
“That’s a lot of fossil turtles for one location,” said Dr Smith, from the Australian Opal Centre, who is a PhD graduand of the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
And how do opals come into it?
“Palaeontologists have been arguing for two hundred years about the nearest relatives of turtles.
Opalised turtles also offer clues about turtle ancestry, which is one of the great unsolved problems of palaeontology.”
Read the complete article for some fascinating information on turtles, and how opalization of fossils has preserved this information for generations to come.