Week 4 crew

It's hard to believe that the dig is almost over. Many thanks to all the crews over the last four weeks, including this happy bunch.

Last day on site

An early morning start for
our last day at the site.

We try out a new venturi.
It works pretty well

but John gets quite wet.

We clean the site carefully.

We draw chalk marks

on the layer boundaries so
that Nick can map them.

A hot Monday with few fossils

Today was hot, and we could see plumes of smoke from the bushfires on Wilson's Prom.
We found very few fossils, but our brave and stout-hearted crew persevered.


Fotini attacks a rock with gusto.

Dave moves in for a consult.

Maybe there's a fossil in the
shore platform over here...

More images

Andrew

Alanna

John

Alan

Mary

Seaweed

We are still looking for a really creative way to rid our hole of the vast amounts of seaweed that accumulates each night. We try raking and scooping and bucketing and wheelbarrowing.



Cate

Raking...

Raking...

Scooping seaweed

Equal opportunity digging

This week the girls got to play with the boys' toys.

Here Nick is instructing Lisa and Cate on how
to place the plugs and feathers.

Then Lisa and Cate got to work.

Lisa then got to play with the big toy
 - the electric drill/jack hammer

Super woman Anouska really got into
the spirit. What an action shot!

Mareika got "bone of the day" for
this beautiful theropod tooth.

Hurray - a mammal jaw at last!

After nearly two and a half weeks the first mammal jaw for the season turned up!
Found by our very lovely Jacqui Tumney, it is a handsome specimen with at least 7 teeth.
David Pickering (Museum Victoria's Collections Manager) thinks it could be an Ausktribosphenos nyktos. More will be revealed after further preparation at the Museum.
Well done Jacqui.

Friends Day and Week 3

Week 3 crew are a very happy bunch.
Seen here in the back garden of the "dig" house in Inverloch.

Mareike Schmidt, arrived from cold,
wintry Germany to warm, sunny
Inverloch. No wonder she is smiling



"Old" hands Kim and Vicki also enjoyed
the lovely weather we experienced on
"Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming" Day
(Sunday 15th February). More than 55
"Friends" joined us at the site. It was a great day.



Mike, Astrid and Sue are very
proud of the large piece of fossil
layer they just removed.

This is one of the largest bones found at the site
(the two brown bits). Approximately 25cms in
length, we are not yet sure what sort of bone it is.

week 2 crew photo and new drill



Week 2 crew on site. Hard to believe it had been 43 degrees C only a few days earlier.
Absent is Alan Evered (again) and Gerry Kool (photographer).

Thanks to the generosity of Wal and Tim Edgar and John Volk from Total Tools in Cranbourne, Victoria (03 5995 7411), Dinosaur Dreaming became the proud owner of a new drill and generator. Pictured is Tim and Johnat at the Total Tools store in Cranbourne donating the drill and generator to John Swinkels, one of the Dinosaur Dreaming team.

Here is the new drill in action. Excavator, Nick van Klaveren tested the drill on the shore platform and declared that it really did the job. The holes were drilled for the plug and feathers, featured in the first week of the dig.

360 degrees

A 360 degree panorama view from site courtesy of Kat.

Latest finds and working at home

When we can't access the site because of high tide,
we break rock at the rented house in Inverloch.

David Pickering (Melbourne Museum Collections Manager) checking
out one of the fossil bones in our "prep area" in the shed.

Long slender bone (rib?) in cross-section

Two bones in cross-section.
The one on the left was broken prior to deposition.

A dinosaur leg bone - probably a tibia
from one of the small ornithopod dinosaurs.

After work

An unusual sculpture



We awoke this morning to a
strange creation of our lawn chairs...

Some cool pics from Kat

"Fashion in the Field"

Pipefish

Synchronised Hammering

A visitor

Lesley helps herself to Gerry's rock

Diggers hard at work

Dreaming Pool reflections

More fun with Jackhammers