School Holiday Activities

Anyone with kids heading down to Inverloch during the school holidays should think about a tour of the dinosaur site: http://www.sgcs.org.au/edu_materials/July%20Holiday%20program%202012.pdf.  Run by our very own Mike Cleeland, kids get to hear about what was happening on our beach 120 million years ago, and may even find a fossil themselves.

Pelagornis found in Victoria

Dr Erich Fitzgerald from MV with other authors including dig volunteer Travis Park have discovered a 5 million year old big bird with teeth on a Victorian beach.  The paper is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Check out the press:
Herald Sun
The Age
Sydney Morning Herald
news.com.au

Mike takes a crew prospecting for plants on French Island



The crew

Mudstone layer on French Island with fossil leaves;
Eve and Mike at the "coalface"

The plant fossil locality, - Tortoise Head in the background

Mike, Pip, Eve and her Mum Sandy and friend Qiu - Qui prospected a newly discovered outcrop of Cretaceous rock on the south west side of French Island. No bones found but some interesting plant leaf fossils.

Plant Fossil

Eve and Mike on the mudstone

The Conversation

Tom had not heard of "The Conversation" until he receieved a request to tell them all about our theropod bones and teeth (he's not really a social media guy).  We're very glad he has now, because they're a great site: http://theconversation.edu.au/three-decades-37-bones-the-long-hunt-for-victorian-dinosaurs-7630.  The article was picked up by Cosmos Magazine: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/online/5725/the-long-hunt-australian-dinosaurs#.T-f4KE4zqs8.twitter.

And just because I missed telling you about it in February: MV has a new(ish) fact sheet: http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/victorias-dinosaurs/.

Some dates

Not 100% final yet, but these are the dates that we are trying to make happen:

• End August: Field Report submissions due
• Saturday 27th October: Field Report & New Recruits Presentations.
• Saturday 24th November: Rookies day at Flat Rocks.
• Saturday 2nd February 2013: Start of 3 week long Flat Rocks dig.
• March TBA: Eric the Red West dig

Pencil them in you diaries (or type them tentatively into your e-diaries) - Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming  and crew will by notified by the usual methods closer to the dates.


The Little Dinosaur Book Launch



The Little Dinosaur

Today was the book launch of a new children's book about our little ornithopod dinosaurs.  The story is based on the partially articulated skeleton from the Otways that we call "Junior", In The Little Dinosaur, Catroina Hoy tells the story of a little injured dinosaur that dies and becomes a fossil. The fossil is later found and prepared for display at a musuem. The book is beautifully illustrated by Andrew Plant, who regular diggers will know as the artist responsible for our 2003 and 2004 dig T-shirt designs.
The Little Dinosaur is published by Working Title Press.
The book lauch was held at the Monash Science Centre, so we got an exhibition-in-progress look at Wayne and Corrie building life-sized dinosaurs.

Links to the event:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/EventCentral/View/event.aspx?p=2&e=10204011
http://www.monash.edu.au/news/events/show/book-launch-the-little-dinosaur
http://www.monashweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/chemistry-teacher-finds-write-formula/2584987.aspx

Lesley launches the book

Corrie talks about a fossil

Book Launch Cake!

Catroina reads it

John's smithing




Koolasuchus

Geopicks

Dino claw

Koolasuchus

Hammer and Chisel

Ceretopsian

Raptor made by John's friend Terry

Hammer and Chisel

Wendyasaura (OK, I made this name up)

John Wilkins has been busy smithing away making cool dino-themed pieces out of railway spikes and other lumps of metal. He even seems to have convinced one of his smithing friends to try out a dino idea.

Any dig crew who would like John to make them a hand smithed piece of dino art should drop him a line.

Exciting new find



The crew admires Andrew's fossil

Alastair, Ashley, Andrew, Steve, Pip and Nicole

Andrew Ruffin found a really interesting fossil in an erratic (loose rock) at a beach near The Punchbowl on Thursday. 
I can't say much about it until the scientists have decided if it's important, but I can say that it's big like a dinosaur not tiny like a (Cretaceous) mammal.
The rock was too large for Andrew to carry up the hill single-handed, so Mike Cleeland organised a crew to retrieve it from the beach today.  Here are a couple of photos (thanks Mike) of the retrieval.