Reg Sprigg's fossil find in South Australia's Flinders Ranges leads to new Ediacaran age in geological history
A 500 million-years-old Ediacaran fossil imprint from the Flinders Ranges.
Image courtesy South Australian Museum
Reg Sprigg, whose life crossed paths with both Douglas Mawson and Mark Oliphant, has only belatedly been recognised for his equally major contribution to science. Sprigg discovered the oldest fossils, the 500-million-year-old Ediacaran fossils in the Flinders Ranges, in 1946.
But his argument that the fossils were possibly Precambrian was rejected by the journal Nature and the 1948 . Later, professor Martin Glaessner at Adelaide University showed the fossils were from the latest Precambrian age. From this, in 2004, came the Ediacaran Period, the first geological era created in more than 100 years.
Fascinated by geology from childhood, Reg began studying at Adelaide University in 1937 under renowned geologists and Antarctic explorers Douglas Mawson and Cecil Madigan.
With his science degree in zoology and an honours degree in geology in 1941, Spriggs tried to enlist in the air force but was diverted work for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR, later the CSIRO).
In 1944, he took part in a top-secret geological survey for uranium – to be used by Allied Forces in atomic bombs. This is how he first visited South Australia's uranium deposits: Radium Hill and Mount Painter at Arkaroola Station in the Flinders Ranges where Sprigg later set up one of Australia's first eco-tourism resorts.
Sprigg also met Mark Oliphant, who was at the forefront of atomic research, at Mount Painter in 1947.
Sprigg was among the first to theorise about climate change. In 1948, he formed a theory – rejected by the International Geological Congress – that the sand dunes at Beachport and Robe in South Australia's south-east were the result of sea level changes and glacial melting.
He was the first person to propose a theory about the geological formation of Adelaide's landscape due to earth's crust movement (before plate tectonics was known). He discovered some of the deepest undersea canyons, south of Kangaroo Island, about the size of the American Grand Canyon. To confirm his discoveries, he took up scuba diving, and built his own boat and his own diving chamber.
Sprigg helped to set up South Australian oil and gas company Santos; discovered the Great Cooper Basin oil and gas fields; founded Beach Petroleum; and explored the Simpson Desert and the Gulf St Vincent. He was the first person to drive across the Simpson Desert.
