In the early 2000s a prospector, Martin Laan, discovered 'string of beads' fossils (Horodyskia) in a quarry (now a protected fossil reserve) near Balfour in NW Tasmania. Horodyskia fossils had been found previously in Montana and Western Australia. Horodyskia Is a fossil visible to the naked eye, and may have been the oldest tissue-grade eukaryotic organism. The Balfour quarry rocks are ~1.35 billion years old (about one third the age of the earth, and more than twice as old as rocks with the first animal fossils!). While nothing remains of the organisms themselves, the fine sediment layers contain an abundance of remarkably detailed casts and moulds of organisms that lived and died on an ancient sea floor. These include mat-like communities of microscopic creatures as well as larger organisms like Horodyskia. This model collection depicts some selected examples of the Laan site rocks and fossils.