Archaeologists looking for crocodile fossils have instead found what they described as a "massive bed" of turtle fossils dating back 50 million years ago in the Queensland outback.

The well preserved remains were found in an oil shale mine in central Queensland and have excited the team from Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAoD) museum who uncovered them, it was reported on Wednesday.

AAoD chairman David Elliott told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that they have uncovered plenty of bones and fossils.

"There is a deposit in the vicinity of the oil shale, that is the remains of a big old lake, like a big lake system," he said.

"The lakes have dried up obviously over a number of years so there are all these crocodiles and turtles and that sort of stuff that was around, and you are looking at around 50 million years old.

"We were hoping for a lot more crocodiles than we're finding, but we have found this massive bed of turtles.

"They are beautifully preserved and we are just getting these big slabs of rock with all these bones exposed over the top." Endi

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