The Alcoota Scientific Reserve is a fossil deposit located 180km by road northeast of Alice Springs, NT. The reserve is a ~1km square incursion into the Alcoota Station and is not open to the public. Here in a dense bone bed lay the remains of thousands of individual animals known as megafauna. The Alcoota fossil beds have produced some of the most diverse and complete examples of larger extinct Australian animals from the Late Miocene (~6-8 million years ago), such as marsupial “rhinos” (diprotodontids), marsupial “tapirs” (palorchestids), giant flightless birds (dromornithids), crocodylians and marsupial “wolves” (thylacines). Alcoota is the most extensive fossil deposit of its age anywhere in Australia.
Fossilised bones at Alcoota are difficult to excavate as they occur in fine but tightly packed sediment and are highly fractured due to the expansion and contraction of the clay-rich sediment over millions of years. The density of fossils also mean that each bone must be carefully removed from other bones around, above and below it, while mimimising any damage. Every bone is chemically consolidated while still in the ground before it can be moved at all, before being packed for transport for final preparation in our lab at Megafauna Central, Alice Springs.
The Alcoota fossil dig experience will include getting up close and personal with the giant Thunderbird, Dromornis stirtoni, an 8-million-year-old giant flightless bird, and likely the largest bird ever to have lived. Like emus, these birds were herbivores but they are not closely related. In fact, despite being flightless, they are more closely related to ducks and geese, while the emu and the cassowary evolved from a different group of flightless birds. But you may also uncover a tooth of an ancient crocodile, a jaw of a giant wombat-relative or the limb of one of the many species of mammals and birds waiting in the ground to be discovered.
Experience Central Australia like never before
MAGNT palaeontologists have been visiting the Alcoota megafauna fossil site for over 30 years, uncovering mysteries of megafauna that tell the story of the drying out of our continent. Starting in 2024, we opened the site to a new model of scientific tourism through our volunteer program.
In 2026 our team of palaeontologists and partners from across Australia will host you for a seven day experience on the Alcoota Scientific Reserve. You will contribute to palaeontological exploration and learn how fossil digs run while being part of a team whose discoveries form a world-class scientific and cultural resource.
You will:
- Learn about the geological history and megafauna at the Alcoota Scientific Reserve
- Learn to distinguish fossilised bones from geological specimens
- Search for fossils in siftings from different pits
- Learn how to label, describe and document megafauna fossils excavated from Alcoota pits
- Mend, reassemble and prepare fossils for packing
- Experience fireside conversation with scientists
- Listen to talks on the Alcoota fauna
- Participate in insect collections for the MAGNT entomology collection
- Help document the extant fauna of the Alcoota Scientific Reserve
- Visit the Engawala Art Centre in the community, whose people have lived on the land for thousands of years
- Contribute to science, seize opportunities for experiences not available outside this fossil dig
- Make lasting friendships and enjoy the extraordinary sights, sounds and beauty of the Central Australian outback.
Volunteer participants will be guided by our highly experienced team of experts from MAGNT and Flinders University:
- Dr Adam Yates, MAGNT Senior Curator of Earth Sciences
- Dr Sam Arman, MAGNT Technical Officer, Earth Sciences
- Dr Kirsti Abbott, MAGNT Head of Science
- Flinders University palaeontologists
