About the New Zealand Fossil Record File

The New Zealand Fossil Record File (FRF) is a file of fossil localities, primarily from New Zealand and the Ross Sea region of Antarctica. Originally paper-based, the FRF has now been digitised and made available through a web site operated by GNS Science and governed jointly by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand and GNS Science.

To date, the FRF contains 104,823 locality records registered at regional recording centres since 1946. Operation of this online version of the FRF is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment through the Nationally Significant Collections and Databases programme, with the assistance of staff from Auckland, Victoria, Canterbury, and Otago universities.

The FRF includes locality coordinates, collection details, stratigraphic position, relevant sedimentary data, and fossil identifications with paleontological opinion on geological age and paleoenvironment.

New Zealand mainland data are organised according to 1:50,000 scale New Zealand map sheets (map series NZMS260), with fossil localities within each map sheet allocated a unique number.

Some samples collected from FRF localities are stored in the National Paleontological Collection at GNS Science. Researchers may access these samples either through an on-site visit or by requesting a loan.

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