Gastroliths

For many years, Mike Cleeland has been delighting young visitors to the Flat Rocks site with his famous searches for dinosaur remains, both during the dig and more recently through the Bunurong Environment Centre.

 

Most trips, at least one visitor finds a dinosaur bone, and a couple of others isolated, rounded stones in the conglomerate.  For many years, Mike has speculated that these may be gastroliths (stomach stones).  Recently he stumbled across a University of California Museum of Palaeontology (UCMP) article that summarises the current thinking.  There is still no evidence that small-bodied ornithopods or toothed theropods used gastroliths.  Of course, nothing says that they couldn't have...

 

So I reckon Mike's going to keep sending young visitors home with a gastrolith and encouraging them to learn a bit more science.

 

Koonwarra 2014

A larva (maybe caddis fly?) from
the 2013 Koonwarra dig

After the success of the Koonwarra dig this year (lots of fish found and the bedding planes turn out to be pretty straightforward), Dr Tom Rich and Prof Tim Flannery are proposing an eight week dig in 2014, after the Flat Rocks and Eric the Red West digs.  Since one of the largest expenses is the bulldozer to expose the site and fill it in again, this would allow lots of detailed dinosaur (and mammal, I guess) hunting between bulldozer time.  And they'd need a crew of 20 volunteers at any time, which may mean more than 100 people involved over the course of the dig.  Of course, all of this is very preliminary - there's funding and permits and logistics to figure out before this becomes a reality - any of which could delay or derail it.  I expect that Tom will tell us all more on Field Report day, including what opportunities exist for past and present Dinosaur Dreaming volunteers to become involved.
It's pretty exciting...

From Peggy

Dave at the microscope

Peggy sent me a few of the photos that she took in the back yard at Flat Rocks this year.

Wendy and Jodi kicking back

No idea what I'm doing with my hands



Eve, Pip and Sauvignon Blanc

Koonwarra 24 April

Mike and Pip happy to be
digging on their Anniversary

Prof Tim Flannery shows off
his fossil fish

Tim's Fish

Darren Bellingham has sent me a few photos that he took whilst visiting the Koonwarra dig on Wednesday. Enjoy!



Fish head

ANZAC Day



Today I headed down to Koonwarra with my friend Peggy to check out the dig there.  Here are some photos of the fun.  Note our beautiful Hi-Vis vests.



The digger

Mike and Peggy hard at work

The crew

The Prep Table (hay bale)

Dave works the rock face

Peggy finds a beautiful fish



Peggy's fish

We found lots of plant fossils

The crew on top of the rock face

Wendy digs up a fish

Wendy's fish

Koonwarra

Mary and Pip enjoying the fish fossils

A small crew has been looking for fossils near Koonwarra.  In 2009, Dr Tom Rich and colleagues had noticed that the Koonwarra sediment looked at bit like that in western Liaoning Province in China (the paper was called A potential Gondwanan polar Jehol Biota lookalike in Victoria, Australia and published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria). So the team is looking for any sign that these sediments might contain feathered dinosaurs, birds, pterosaurs and mammal skeletons.

So far they have found a number of beautiful fish fossils.

Clowning around with dino sculptures

Here's a few photos of Darren and Phil's trip to the Otway Fly:

Headbutting competition

Talking to a flying reptile

One-armed showdown

First aid training comes in handy

Feeding the Triceratops

Tickling the theropod