In 1993 scientists at ANSTO identified a giant egg found in the sand dunes of a Western Australian beach as being from the prehistoric Madagascan Elephant Bird. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, ANSTO's Accelerator Mass Spectrometry group dated the egg at some 2000 years old.
The egg measures 80.5cm in circumference and has a capacity of 7.3 litres, equivalent to 150 chicken eggs. Research has shown the egg to be one of only about a dozen such examples in the world. The Elephant Bird or aepyornis maximus was a giant ostrich-like bird which was flightless and weighed about 1 000 pounds (450 kilograms). The largest stood at about 3 metres high and probably became extinct about 800 years ago.
Minute samples of the egg shell were taken by ANSTO scientists using a special dental type drill. The samples were then analysed using the most sophisticated radio-carbon dating technique available in Australia, ANSTO's tandem accelerator. The tandem accelerator is able to determine the age of ancient artefacts by counting the number of Carbon-14 atoms present in the sample.