Long before Wollemi pine-like plants, flowering plants and even dinosaurs existed, during the Silurian Period, the Earth’s mountainous land surface was largely barren.

In contrast, the shallow seas were alive with single celled organisms like bacteria and algae; soft-bodied animals like jellyfish and worms; as well as jawless fish, trilobites (bottom dwelling animals of shallow seas), brachiopods (lamp shells), straight-shelled nautiloids (marine molluscs) and crinoids (filter feeding organisms that lived attached to rocks on the bottom of the ocean).  Seaweeds were also abundant at this time.

Until relatively recently in the geological past, Australia and other continents were part of a supercontinent known as Gondwana. During the Silurian Period, Australia was connected with India, Antarctica, Africa, South America and other land masses.

Since the Middle Jurassic Period, about 170 million years ago, the continents of Gondwana gradually started drifting apart to where they are today and they are still moving.