2019 Flat Rocks Dig

The Dinosaur Dreaming crew returns to Flat Rocks in February 2019. We will be on the beach 4 hours either side of low tide, from Feb 8th to March 2nd. Come along and say "hi" and we give you a bit of a tour of the site. If you are lucky, we may even have fossils that we have just found to show you.

2018 Field Report Day

I am delighted to confirm that we will present the 2018 Field Report on Saturday 23 February at the Bunurong Envinorment Centre in Inverloch. This will be the first time we have hosted it during the dig near the actual dig site, so we are quite excited. Registered Friends and crew should get their invitations shortly.

We have a permit for 2019!

After a rather lengthy consultative process, Parks Victoria have granted Pat a permit to extract rocks from the Victorian Cretaceous in 2019. We usually have the deig season pretty well planned by now, so it is likely to be a pretty small dig, without a newbie recruitment. And likely to be at Flat Rocks.

How better to celebrate than with chocolate cake?

Pat cuts the cake

Our Outback Queensland adventure begins

At the Dinosaur Canyon at The Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History

National Science Week at Melbourne Museum is all about fossils

On Sunday 19 August, join me at Melbourne Museum as we celebrate National Science Week.
All day long people (including me) will be excavating some Croc Blocks (Eocene turtles and crocodiles from up near Gladstone), and Dr Tom Rich will be talking about "the biggest list of volunteers on a dinosaur dig!" at 2:00 pm.  He is sharing the stage with Dr Erich Fitzgerald, who will probably talk about whales.
https://museumsvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whats-on/national-science-week/

Australia's Dinosaurs at Wheelers' Hill Library

Dr Steve Poropat is talking about Australia's dinosaurs (including Vic Cretaceous ones) on Thursday 2 August at 7:00 pm at the Wheeler's Hill Library. For details and to register:
https://www.monlib.vic.gov.au/Events/Event-Listing/Australias-Dinosaurs
https://inspiringvictoria.org.au/event/australias-dinosaurs-at-wheelers-hill-libary/

Permits

Some good news on the permit front - we have now got permission to collect the fossils that Mike Cleeland has found whilst prospecting on the Bass Coast. Still no word on the permits that will allow us to do a more intensive dig (like we have been doing at ETRW and before that at Flat Rocks) - not sure if that might happen in time to do something in early 2019, but we hope so!

An overview of Victorian Cretaceous research

It's finally here - Dr Steve Poropat et al have published the long promised review summarising what has been published so far on the Victorian Cretaceous.

The link to the Alcheringa article is here.
Look out for the mention of me on page 49!

New mammal jaw to be scanned tomorrow

Last November I found a jaw that bears an at least superficial resemblance to Corriebaatar marywaltersae whilst breaking rock in Lesley's driveway. Dr Tom Rich tells me that the jaw that I found will be scanned tomorrow at the Monash Synchrotron. Whilst this is very exciting, it sometimes takes week to render those images afterwards.

What if Australia's best dinosuars have not been found yet?

Steve Poropat is speaking on May 22nd in Hawthorn - speculating on what other dinosaurs are out there waiting to be discovered:

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/what-if-australias-best-dinosaurs-havent-been-found-yet-tickets-42856037562

RSV: Our Mesozoic Menagerie

A review of Steve Poropat's Royal Society of Victoria presentation is in their latest newsletter online here.  A capacity audience (including Tom rich and a handful of Dinosaur Dreaming volunteers) listened to Steve talk about dinosaurs, marine reptiles and even little mammals.

Sentinel Times Koonwarra story

Here is the link to the South Gippsland Sentinel Times article about the recent Koonwarra dig. (Thanks Mike for pointing it out!)
http://sgst.com.au/2018/04/cutting-edge-digs-koonwarra-fossil-bed/

An update on those Koonwarra blocks

A number of Koonwarra blocks have made their way to Lesley's shed. She is trying various treatments to try to get the blocks to break along the bedding plane (revealing any beautiful fossils) rather than cross-plane (revealing multiple tiny fossil fragments). She is treating them with lots of water and just a little water and lots of sunlight and no sunlight.  I can't wait to hear what works best!

Digging at Koonwarra

Some photos from Steve:

Dean and John digging

Fossils in a box

Dean examining the hole

Tim and John digging

John happily digging

Digging at Koonwarra

Some photos from Lesley:

Block with foil barrier

Dean and John jackhammering face of layer

First block to be plaster jacketed

Gary filling in the excavation

Gary loading bags of rock onto his trailer

Gerry rock breaking

John and Dean checking out rock sawn block

John doing a bit of housework while Steve looks on

John and Dean chiselling out rock sawn block

Mary breaking rock

Mayfly nymph found by Mary

Nice plant fossil

Plastered block

Pat rock breaking

Remains of fossil fish

Steve and Mary checking out the exposed surface

Tom supervising the excavation using his digital sight glasss

Digging at Koonwarra

I thought I might share some photos taken on the recent exploratory dig at Koonwarra. The aim of the dig was to remove some blocks of fossil-bearing material, so that Tom Rich can try out different scanning techniques to see if any work.  This will help determine extraction techniques for a full-scale dig in the future.

Some photos from Dean:

A bulldozer removes the top layer

Steve, Mary and Tom

Steve and Tim hitting rocks

John makes dust

Tim and John

The Little L Project

I forgot to tell you that all the information you need to visit it is here.

The Little L Project at the Wool Museum

Today I went to the opening of The Little L Project at the National Wool Museum. Deakin researchers Kaja and Ben and their team have made a Virtual Reality Eric the Red West, 3D printed some dinosaur skin analogues, and made a space where you can virtually colour a 3D Leaellynasaura. Way cool.

The Little L Project

The Little L Project

The creative team

Wendy in the VR goggles

Colouring the Leaellynasaura

My colouring attempt...

New Diluvicursor pickeringi signs at Melbourne Museum

Our fossil has a new label...

... and a nice interpretive sign

RACV Royal Auto article

Nicole Evered has reminded me that I had not shared the great article in the December/January Royal Auto - here it is - enjoy!

Age article on dinosaur bone cross-sections

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/study-reveals-big-picture-for-victoria-s-little-dinosaur-20180126-p4yyxe.html

Easier read on ornithopod bone sections

Holly Woodward (et al)'s paper on thin sections of our ornithopod long bones has been summarised on the Swinburne University of Technology website: here

Our ornithopod long bones

Holly Woodward (et al) have just published a new paper on what can be deduced about our ornithopods based on cross-sections of their long bones.
Here is the link

Long-time followers of Dino Dreaming will remember Holly from the 2010 Field Report.

More on Diluvicursor pickeringi

Our little dinosaur now has a Wikipedia entry.

And lots of press:
Reuters
ABC
CNN
SBS
New York Post
Cosmos
Fox News
9 News

Also check out the Museums Victoria site.

Diluvicursor pickeringi

The partial skeleton from ETRW has a name!
Meet Diluvicursor pickeringi.
Here is the PeerJ article by Dr Matt Herne et al.