Research Support
Fraser Brown
Born in England, I was first introduced to palaeontology when I found a fossil clam shell in my family’s shingle driveway. Since then, I’ve been hooked. Emigrating to Australia it felt as if I was moving away from the hub of natural sciences. Never have I been so glad to be so wrong. By pure luck the year after I finished high school Flinders University established it’s Bachelor of Sciences in Palaeontology, proverbially on my doorstep. I enrolled at once.
My undergraduate years were some of the best I’ve ever had, and I established many friendships with both students and tutors.
In the course of my study, I have excavated fossil sites in four of Australia’s States and Territories, from 8-million-year-old three-meter tall dromornithids in Alcoota NT, to searching for 400 million year old placoderm fish in Mansfield Vic, to the incredible preservation of <70,000 year old extinct megafauna in Naracoorte SA and Wellington NSW.
In 2022 I completed an honours project describing The Brothers Islands, a Late Pleistocene (<120kyo) fossil cave deposit in Coffin Bay, Eyre Peninsula. I identified more than 30 species of mammal, many of which had never been found in the region before. This included immense 180kg kangaroos, to large predators such as thylacine and Tasmanian devil, to half-a-dozen tiny rodents. I am currently working on publishing this material.
My time at Flinders has been one of constant learning. Just when I think I have a grasp on what I’m doing, I breach some unseen barrier, and find myself tumbling down yet another rabbit warren. But each time the steadfast expertise, youthful enthusiasm, and unwavering support of the palaeontology department drags me to the surface, and promptly pushes me down the next hole. I quite honestly would not want to be anywhere else.