Baby Williamson

I am delighted to report that Catherine and Gavin Williamson (2012 Week 3 diggers) had a baby daughter.  Ella Jade arrived on 30 November weighing 3.63kg.  Congrats to the happy parents.  I'm sure you'll all agree that she is very cute.

Images from Rookies' Day



The Rock Rock

Digging

Digging

Gerry's rock

A hive of activity

Cleaning the Rock Rock

Digging

Digging

Testing the dredge

The Hole Crew

Carrying equipment

For Hannah's Mum...

Lisa consults about a possible fossil

Andrew directs digging efforts

Rookies and their mentors



Elly and Corrie

Andrew and Jarvis

Astrid, Jack and Mary

Kim and Lauren

Jesse and Bronnie

James and Darren

Kim and Lisa

Gerry, Zara and Joerg

Fabrizio and Wendy

Peggy and Adam

Travis and Hannah

Jenna

Natarsha, Mike and Lee-Anne

Bill

Fossils from Rookies' Day



Spongy cross section

Astrid's find

Both halves

Rookies finding fossils



Astrid shows off her find

Today 18 applicants for Dinosaur Dreaming Crew were put through their paces.  I captured seven of them right after they'd found their first fossil.  More photos of "Rookies Day" to come in the next few days, but I couldn't resist posting these as soon as possible. 

Lee-Anne finds a fossil

Kim with his find

Joe happy with his fossil

Guess what Joerg found!

Lauren with a turtle limb

James looking thrilled

Juliana Sterli's visit

Reknowned fossil turtle researcher Juliana Sterli visited Museum Victoria in early November. Juliana works on South American fossil turtles and is based at Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio, Trelew, Provincia de Chubut in Argentina. Juliana wanted to see the Early Cretaceous turtle material as well as the meiolaniid (horned turtle) specimens housed in the Vertebrate Palaeontolgy Collection.
She was very impressed with the size of the horns from a meiolaniid turtle from the Pleistocene of New South Wales.

 Juliana in the Vertebrate Palaeontology lab at Museum Victoria

 Juliana holding the giant fossil turtle horn from New South Wales. The turtle who owned this horn would have been the size of a small car!

During Juliana's visit resident turtlephyle Lesley Kool took her to see the Dinosaur Dreaming site near Inverloch and showed her some of the turtle specimens that have come from that site. Juliana is currently undertaking a review of fossil turtle phylogeny and hopefully some of our turtles will be included in that research.

Portland trip

Over the long weekend a few diggers headed out to Portland to look for megafauna and shark's teeth (and penguins).  Everyone went home happy - we found a few teeth (and Alanna found a jaw).  We got completely covered in mud (my favourite part!).  Travis spotted a bone in Sean's collection that was very similar to the one he just wrote his honours thesis about.  And Darren got to rescue a couple of lumps of rock he is convinced will contain good shark's teeth, and to update his ideas about the sites.  Big thanks to locals Sean and Toni-Lee for their generosity - showing us around and allowing us to look at their fossils.  Pictures in other posts.

Portland Monday 5th November



A wetter day

A pelvic element

Lisa looks at the waves

Dave and the cliff

Portland Sunday 4th November



Briefing on the stairs

Dave points to the fossil site

Bottom of the stairs

Dave checks the layer

Stairs

Bone in situ

 

The tooth that Lisa found

Alanna reaches under a overhang

The jaw that Alanna found

Dave cuts out the jaw

Another bone in situ

The tooth that Wendy found

Working on the cliff

Sarah makes a sound scape

Travis and Alanna

Dave searches the cliff

Travis finds a low layer

Sarah and Lisa

Alanna and Dave

Alanna and Dave

Alanna and knife

 

Dave

Sloping rock

Sarah, Dave and Alanna

 

Sarah searching

Lisa searching

Wendy Dave and Sarah

Dave and Alanna

Darren looks at Sean's sharks tooth collection