Monday 26 November 2012

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

Sunday 25 November 2012

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

Wednesday 21 November 2012

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.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

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