Friends' Day Weekend

Things are starting to really come together for our Friends' Day weekend.
We expect a small number of volunteers wearing hat hats to remove rock from the base of the cliff, breaking only those that cannot be carried.  The remaining crew will then process them as usual, and any rock remaining at the end of Sunday will be returned to Lesley's shed to await future processing.  I'm expecting about 15 volunteers to work Saturday, and about 20 on Sunday.  Of course, on Sunday we will also have our Friends visit, so a few of our volunteers will peel off to make sure that visiting Friends are safe and informed.  Lesley has met with Parks Victoria (since Flat Rocks is part of the Bunurong Coastal Reserve), and talked to them about our plans.
All that's left is to hope for some sunshine...
Friends' Day is Sunday, 23rd March.

Listening to Mike

Mike on guitar

Blaire captured an interesting series of photos during one of Mike's performances at Bimbi Park.  Firstly, to set the mood, is a picture of Mike on guitar.  Then some photos of the crowd listening, muted at first, until a few brave souls lead the way into full blown audience participation.

The crowd watches with rapt (stunned?) attention

Dave and Wendy start some
uncoordinated arm-waving

Until the whole crowd joins in.
Well, maybe with the exception of Bronnie,
but she was probably inhibited since a
horse had bitten off the end of her finger

Annual Friends' Day

Preparations are in train for our Annual Friends' Day (not a Friend? join here) at Flat Rocks on March 23rd.  Let's just hope the weather holds...

John and a pacific gull

John communes with a pacific gull at ETRW (thanks Saraj for the photo)

Turning over a rock: a video from Lesley

Field Catalogue

A sample page of the Field Catalogue

Many of the ETRW dig crew may have wondered why I was not around much before dinner, and usually turned up still covered with beach sand, salt and coal whilst many of you had time to get clean.  After site each day (or at least each day I wasn't finding an Internet connection to update the blog), I did stuff to look after the fossils.  I love fossils.  Last year some of the ETRW fossils did not make it back to the museum as beautiful as they were when we found them, so I was working extra hard to protect this year's haul.
So, each afternoon I unpacked all the fossils from the black backpack and from any other backpacks and buckets we pressed into service.  Once we even had a handful of fossils carried up in a seed tray.
I would sort through them, setting aside all labelled "Microscope Check".  You might not have known I had a microscope in my cabin.  So I would check these, most of the time getting a second opinion from Lesley or Dave.  Many of these were not really bone (some coal, some seed pods, some beetlebums, some a mineral that Lesley called muscovite), but those that were got added back to the fossil pile.
Then I updated the Field Catalogue, writing a reference number on each fossil and recording it.
And then I packed the fossils into boxes to take back to the museum, leaving aside any that Dave thought that Tom might like to see (given how crumbly the rock gets once it dries I left the unwrapping of those important specimens to Dave since he could then look after them straight away).
This catalogue is important for a couple of reasons.  Mostly it allows Dave to make sure that all fossils make it to the museum to be evaluated, and to record the eventual disposition of each specimen.  Perhaps 20% (or slightly more) of the fossils we found will turn out to be good enough (once seen in laboratory conditions and sometimes with a little matrix removed) to become part of the museum's collection.
Also one of the conditions of our permit from Parks is that we list all of the fossils so that they know that they are going to the museum and not to the pockets of private collectors.
I guess, too, that this also explains why I usually had all the fossil stats at my fingertips.

Stretching

What dino dig would be complete without some early morning stretches?  Here's some pictures courtesy of Blaire.

A lovely day for a stretch

Aren't we a coordinated bunch?