The sediments that make up these rocks represent the remnants of the river plains that filled the basin left by the Eromanga Sea - an inland sea that covered large parts of Queensland and central Australia at least four times during the Early Cretaceous period.

Great meandering rivers, forest pools and swamps, creeks, lakes and coastal estuaries all left behind different types of sediment.

By around 95 million years ago, the deposition was complete and the inland sea would never be seen again.

By virtue of its age and the environmental conditions under which the rocks it consists of were deposited, the Winton Formation represents one of the richest sources of dinosaur fossils anywhere in Australia.

A fossil footprint-(ichnite), Wintonopus, found with two other dinosaur genera footprints at the Lark Quarry in Australia, c.f.