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Berowra's Triassic footprints
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Detailsn 1948 two local men were working for Geoff Scarrott in a quarry just off an unnamed track (later named Currawong Road) that ran off Berowra Waters Road. They were splitting sandstone when they noticed several footprints clearly visible on a slab they had just exposed. When the men showed Scarrott he understood the importance of the find. He immediately reported it to the Australian Museum but the museum’s palaeontologist, Harold Fletcher, was, at first, very sceptical having proved previously reported finds in Australia as false.
After not hearing back from the museum for a week or so, Scarrott followed up with Fletcher with more enthusiasm as he had since discovered a second set of footprints, this time with a tail drag mark.
The footprints were numerous and very clear making them a very significant discovery. The museum sent out a team to Berowra who stayed for some time to study the area and carefully extract the 4.2 metre sandstone slab with 35 footprints.
t was determined that the footprints were of a large four-legged amphibian that lived in Berowra in the middle of the Triassic period, 240 million years ago. News of the discovery was reported in palaeontology circles worldwide and the footprints were on public display in the Australian Museum for several years in the 1950s, before being transferred to the museum’s research collection.
Recently researchers from the University of New England, in Armidale, studied Berowra’s Triassic period footprints and in May 2020 they published a paper on their findings. It determined the trail was made by an extinct salamander-type amphibian, known as a “temnospondyl”, which was between 800cm and 1.35 metres in length. Although temnospondyls are considered amphibians they have scales, claws, and armour-like bony plates, unlike modern amphibians.
Initially there was confusion about why each footprint only showed two claws when the temnospondyl has a total of five claws on each foot. The research concluded that the animal was actually swimming at the time it made the marks and only brushed the river bottom. This makes the Berowra footprints even more significant as they are the oldest record of a swimming tetrapod (animals with four legs) in Australia.
Just up the hill from the quarry Geoff Scarrott went on to build his house using the quarried sandstone. He also established a flower nursery called “Gladness Gardens, Berowra”, specializing in the production of gladiolus, which he ran in the Currawong Road area until around 1969. The whole area was subdivided and built on in about 1981 leaving modern housing over the old quarry site.
There have been other reports of fossils found in the Berowra area. This includes in 1901 when Berowra Creek Road was being constructed, and stone was blasted away revealing fossilised fish in the lose sandstone debris.
KeywordsBerowra
After not hearing back from the museum for a week or so, Scarrott followed up with Fletcher with more enthusiasm as he had since discovered a second set of footprints, this time with a tail drag mark.
The footprints were numerous and very clear making them a very significant discovery. The museum sent out a team to Berowra who stayed for some time to study the area and carefully extract the 4.2 metre sandstone slab with 35 footprints.
t was determined that the footprints were of a large four-legged amphibian that lived in Berowra in the middle of the Triassic period, 240 million years ago. News of the discovery was reported in palaeontology circles worldwide and the footprints were on public display in the Australian Museum for several years in the 1950s, before being transferred to the museum’s research collection.
Recently researchers from the University of New England, in Armidale, studied Berowra’s Triassic period footprints and in May 2020 they published a paper on their findings. It determined the trail was made by an extinct salamander-type amphibian, known as a “temnospondyl”, which was between 800cm and 1.35 metres in length. Although temnospondyls are considered amphibians they have scales, claws, and armour-like bony plates, unlike modern amphibians.
Initially there was confusion about why each footprint only showed two claws when the temnospondyl has a total of five claws on each foot. The research concluded that the animal was actually swimming at the time it made the marks and only brushed the river bottom. This makes the Berowra footprints even more significant as they are the oldest record of a swimming tetrapod (animals with four legs) in Australia.
Just up the hill from the quarry Geoff Scarrott went on to build his house using the quarried sandstone. He also established a flower nursery called “Gladness Gardens, Berowra”, specializing in the production of gladiolus, which he ran in the Currawong Road area until around 1969. The whole area was subdivided and built on in about 1981 leaving modern housing over the old quarry site.
There have been other reports of fossils found in the Berowra area. This includes in 1901 when Berowra Creek Road was being constructed, and stone was blasted away revealing fossilised fish in the lose sandstone debris.
KeywordsBerowraRelated
CollectionNathan Tilbury
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Berowra's Triassic footprints. Hornsby Shire, accessed 22/04/2026, https://hornsbyshire.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/5422