Final Flat Rocks fossil count

At final count, we recorded 497 fossils in the 2013 Flat Rocks field catalogue.
This does not include all of the "shoulder bones" (bones that we could determine were too incomplete to be of scientific interest)  that we discarded at site or at the house.
It does include a few fossils we labelled "microscope check" on site that Dave or Lesley subsequently prepared more and then discarded.
Most of these fossils will go back to the Melbourne Museum where Dave Pickering will oversee their removal from the rock during the year.
A few turtle specimans have gone home to Lesley's house to be prepared there.  Lesley is working on describing our turtle (with some other scientists) and is keen to see as much material as she can before committing her conclusions to paper.

A big thanks to our volunteers, Friends and sponsors for making this all possible.

Blogozoic

Travis Park, dig volunteer and Paleo PhD candidate, has started a blog talking about Australian fossils and other things.  His latest entry describes the week he spent with us at Flat Rocks.  Check it out!

Week 3 Bones of the Day

Sun 17 Feb: Lesley's ornithopod tooth
Mon 18 Feb: The metatarsal from the hole crew - Travis Lisa and Bill
Tue 19 Feb: Kat's ornithopod tooth
Wed 20 Feb: Jackpot - no prize awarded
Thu 21 Feb: Norman's pretty vertebra
Fri 22 Feb: tba

Mary's grandson



Thinking

 

Big yawn

As promised, photos of Mary Walter's new baby grandson Aden.



Videos

I took a few short videos on February 3rd when we had the jackhammer down on site. It was the second day of the dig and we were still figuring out exactly how we were going to attack this year's target fossil layers.

Andrew jackhammers:



Nick jackhammers:



Nick jackhammers:

Eve is happy when Andrew uses a crowbar:

I thought it would be a cool idea to follow a bucket of water through a bucket line.  Watch for Corrie switching sides and Fotini reaching for an imaginary bucket and giggling.  We got a little better at this as the week wore on:



WIN News 22 Feb

For those unlucky enough not to get the Gippsland edition of WIN News - here's their story featuring a number of your favourite people looking for dinosaurs.

Day 20 - last day at site

Darren with his fossil

The hole crew at work

A bone found in the hole

Norman's pretty vertebra

Day 19 - still pretty cold



Eve and her fossil

A pretty vertebra

Week 3 Crew

Lisa James Alan Darren Eve Gerry Peggy Alanna Travis Wendy Dean Dave
John Norman Nicole Jodi Lesley Hannah Alan Kat Mary Bill Asti Rohan Nick

Day 18 - Cooler and damper

We decided to build a fake Gerry

We started to add props

Alanna adds the finishing touches

A nice vertebra

John poses with his fossil

John sinking into the shore platform

Wendy and her fossil limb

Wendy's limb

Kat finds a tooth

Jodi's lungfish tooth

Jodi and her lungfish tooth

Korumburra Primary School visit

Excited students watching the hole

Mike explains the site




Lisa talking to students




Dean with the ornithopod puppet



Lisa answers a question



Dean with a theropod skull



Mike talks to the students



A Koolasuchus diagram



Rohan checks a fossil find



Dean with the ornithopod puppet



Rohan checks another fossil

Leongatha Star

Today our dinosaur dig features in the Leongatha Star:
http://thestar.com.au/?p=6489.  Here's a copy of page 18 that Brad (the editor) was kind enough to send me.

Day 17 - Hot hot hot

James with his fossil

Jarvis with her little vertebra

Jarvis' vertebra




Mary with her vertebra



Mary's vertebra



An unusual shape



Lisa, Travis and Bill with their metatarsal




The hole team's metatarsal



The crew takes lunch in the dreaming pool

Dave explaining his idea of
safety glasses with windscreen wipers



Friends' Day Bone of the Day

Finally Lesley Kool was able to award herself bone of the day for a beautiful ornithopod tooth found on Friends' Day.  Here she is posing with her husband Gerry.



Gerry and Lesley

Gerry and Lesley

Good find

Kate and her Mum came all the way from East Bowral, NSW to visit our dig.  Whilst prospecting with Mike, Kate found a shapely surface bone and agreed to pose with it.  Kate is a Year 8 student who wants to be a palaeontologist.  If she keeps finding fossils this quickly she seems well on her way.



Kate's fossil

Kate

Old Friends come to visit

Ann-Marie decks her kids out in dino T-shirts

Baby Ella with a Baryonyx claw

Gavin and Catherine bring their dig baby to site



Day 16 - Friends' Day

Sunday 17th Feb was Friend's Day.  71 supporters of Dinosaur Dreaming visited the site and watched us dig and jackhammer.


Alan and Nicole greet visitors
at the top of the stairs

Digging

Kat wields the jackhammer

The team looks at the layers in the hole

Eve takes Friends on a tour

Nick wields the jackhammer

Friends look at the dinosaur footprint

Friends watch the hole crews at work

Lisa shows off some of our fossils

Mike takes some Friends prospecting

Kat wields the jackhammer

Dave examines a fossil

Getting close to the rock face

Tamara wields the jackhammer