Some of Brisbane's oldest heritage-listed buildings are harbouring clues about the prehistoric past.
Fossilised footprints belonging to 230-million-year-old dinosaurs have been unearthed in Brisbane, indented into the same sandstone that constructed the city's most recognisable buildings, like the General Post Office.
"These buildings certainly capture my eye, and I do glance twice to see what evidence might be hidden within their own architecture," Palaeontologist Dr Anthony Romilio said.
Dr Romilio said two separate pieces of Brisbane-mined sandstone handed over to the University of Queensland's Dinosaur Lab, appear to display the tread-marks of the Sauropodomorph.
"Instead of walking on all four legs, they walked on their back legs. They still retained a very long neck and tail, but they were more ancient than the more typical than the brontosaurus," he said.
One of the footprints was discovered by a teenager over six decades ago at Petrie's Quarry.
Before the inner-north neighbourhood of Albion became the sought-after suburbia of today, it was Petrie's Quarry.
Educator Sue-Belinda Meehan said the Petrie family opened the quarry in the 1860s, 30 years after the family settled in Brisbane, which was then known as the Moreton Bay Penal Colony.
"If the Petrie's hadn't recognised the quality of that sandstone, we wouldn't have the sandstone that literally built Brisbane," she said.