At Lightning Ridge, palaeontologists, opal miners and fossil collectors come together to dig up precious relics

One in a billion bones becomes a fossil — even fewer turn into opal. In a pocket of north-western New South Wales, two pioneering women are uncovering relics of our deep past. 

"I'm 99 per cent sure they're shark's teeth," one man says, eyeing the tiny triangular treasures in front of him.

Jenni Brammall is a palaeontologist who's been studying relics like these in one of the world's most fossil-rich regions for more than 30 years. 

“Two of these have got this incredible microstructure that you can see on the inside because they’re translucent,” she says, now seated and focused, examining each tooth that time has turned to gemstone.  

"Lightning Ridge was heavily forested — dominated by pines and tree ferns, with rivers and streams running through them, toward the sea."

Over millions of years, the remains of plants, dinosaurs, crocodiles and mammals were buried in the clay and sand of the river beds. Long after they decomposed, water rich in silica ran through the earth, filling the cracks and voids where bones and shell once lay.

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