Recent rain in drought-affected Queensland has helped to uncover marine fossils that are up to 100 million years old.

Back then, during the Cretaceous period, the north-west Queensland town of Richmond was underwater and home to a number of ancient marine animals.

In January this year, Richmond received more than 200 millimetres of rain, flooding parts of a fossil hunting site 12 kilometres north of the town.

The curator of Richmond's Kronosaurus Korner museum, Dr Tim Holland, said he and his wife made some exciting finds when they went out digging after the rain.

"We walked on a particular spot where the machinery had pushed up a large section of rock and it had been washed off," he said.

"It had revealed these tiny bones of fossil fish, shark teeth and turtle bones.

"Also the remains of squid called belemnites but more exciting, some larger bones - these sort of rectangular or square-shaped objects - which actually belong to the flippers of an extinct type of marine reptiles known as an ichthyosaur which would have superficially resembled a dolphin."

Recent rain at the dig site near Richmond has exposed new Cretaceous-era fossils. ( Supplied: Tim Holland )

Dr Holland said several big finds had been uncovered at the site in recent years, including a skull and a baby ichthyosaur.

"That skull of that ichthyosaur, which was probably found about five metres away from this recent find this year, has one of the best recorded skulls of an ichthyosaur in Australia," he said.

"Again, five metres away from that in 2011 we have another ichthyosaur, this time a baby, and it's probably the best persevered ichthyosaur body in Australia."

"So we are very, very excited about the potential that this new rain has brought to our fossil hunting sites."

Dr Holland said tourism was important to the region and he hoped the new discoveries would lure more fossil-hunting visitors to Richmond.

"Tourists if they are coming along can see all these vast array of fossils that have been previously sitting slightly below the surface or covered in dust," he said.

"If we are having more people coming to search for fossils they are coming also to the museum Kronosaurus Korner, they are spending time in the community looking at other things as well."