McGraths Flat

 ( Lagerstätten ) 

McGraths Flat is an Australian research site containing Fossil and other evidence of animals and plants that existed in Miocene Australia. Located in central New South Wales, specimens at the site are in an exceptional state of preservation, described in paleontology as a Konservat-Lagerstätten, deposited in unusual conditions that record microscopic details of soft tissues and delicate structures. Fossil evidence of animals with soft bodies, unlike the bones of mammals and reptiles, is rare in Australia, and discoveries at McGraths' Flat have revealed unknown species of invertebrates such as insects and spiders.

The site, near the town of Gulgong, is named for its discoverer, Nigel McGrath, a farmer who found the first fossils there in 2017. The degree of preservation at this Lagerstätte has been compared to the quality of that found at Crato Formation, Lake Eckfeld, and Libros. Other fossil sites in Australia, such as Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Bullock Creek and Alcoota, are rich in the skeletal remains of Miocene fauna, but none provide the diversity of organisms, their interactions, or exquisite detail found at this site. The finely layered fossiliferous strata is associated with permanent water, perhaps an oxbow lake, in a mesic rainforest, habitat that once dominated the continent. One theory of the rock's formation is that acidic soils released and transported dissolved Fe(II) from weathering basaltic bedrock into the depositional environment creating Ferricrete.

At the time of deposition of the fossil strata, from 16 to 11 million years ago, the site was a slow moving or still water body, perhaps a billabong. Along with fish, the fossilised remains of insects include an abundance of pupae and adult stages of aquatic species. Evidence of an isolated ecosystem at a stable and permanently wet site is supported by preliminary examination of taxa that includes midges.

+ List of named taxa form McGraths Flat
Reference
Moulds, M., Frese, M. and McCurry, M.R., 2022. New cicada fossils from Australia (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae) with remarkably detailed wing surface nanostructure. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, 46(3-4), pp.264-276.
Moulds, M., Frese, M. and McCurry, M.R., 2022. New cicada fossils from Australia (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae) with remarkably detailed wing surface nanostructure. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, 46(3-4), pp.264-276.
Moulds, M., Frese, M. and McCurry, M.R., 2022. New cicada fossils from Australia (Hemiptera: Cicadoidea: Cicadidae) with remarkably detailed wing surface nanostructure. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, 46(3-4), pp.264-276.
McCurry, M.R., Frese, M. and Raven, R., 2024. A large brush-footed trapdoor spider (Mygalomorphae: Barychelidae) from the Miocene of Australia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 200(4), pp.1026-1033.
Baranov, V., Frese, M., Beattie, R., Djokic, T. and McCurry, M.R., 2024. New aquatic insects from the Miocene of Australia with notes on the ecology and ontogeny of a new species of Chaoborus (Diptera, Chaoboridae). Papers in Palaeontology, 10(4), p.e1580.
Cantrill, D.J., Ohlsen, D., McCurry, M.R. and Frese, M., 2023. Gleichenia nagalingumiae sp. nov., a remarkably well-preserved fossil species with in situ spores from the Miocene of Australia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology, 310, p.104823.
Hart, L.J., Engel, M.S., FRESE, M. and McCurry, M.R., 2024. The first fossil mantis lacewing (Neuroptera: Mantispidae) from Australia. Palaeoentomology, 7(3), pp.345-348.
Ferrucornus gulgongensis	Coleoptera: Cerambycidae
Ventiala beattiei	Coleoptera: Cerambycidae
Baladi warru	Hymenoptera: Pergidae
Ferruaspis	Osmeriformes: Ferruaspidae

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