Artwork 1a Swords Range Stromatolites and Mesas

We also discovered fossil stromatolites in dry, rugged creek beds and slopes of the Swords Range near Winton in Central Queensland, and some are included in this painting in the centre foreground. Small pieces of colourful fossilised wood lay strewn around the area.

Although no date is available for this particular location, stromatolite reefs near Mount Isa, about 200 km north-west of this area, were dated at 1,600 mya (White, 1986, p. 21). I felt really privileged to be able to sit quietly in a creek bed painting fossils that may be as old as 1,600 million years, with ancient mesas in the distance, red-gold against a brilliant blue sky. Scattered acacias and eucalypts provided cover for grazing kangaroos and emus in sheltered gullies. As the Sun dipped, the rock-strewn slopes glowed golden ochre, then red, and finally purple, in the fading light.