Mass Death Event - the Megafauna Tour

So, a small group of lucky volunteers headed out to Western Victoria with Dave Pickering first weekend in May. We went to work with Stephen Carey from the University of Ballarat at the trackways in ash featured recently on catalyst http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2556188.htm and in the Herald Sun http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25527894-2862,00.html.

We stayed at a caravan park atop an old volcano. It had a great view:

Sarah took some photos of the huge trackways:

John W gets comfortable digging up some bones and teeth:

We all have some silliness in Lismore en route:

Featuring John S - the famous hand model featured on Catalyst.

Drilling holes for plugs and feathers

(Thanks to Dave the cinematographer)

Japanese Dreamers

Follow this link to a video of the visit. http://www.monash.edu.au/news/monashmemo/stories/20090408/dinosaur.html.

 

Students from the Notre Dame Jogakuin Senior High School, Kyoto, Japan
visited the Dinosaur Dreaming site on the 2nd April. The weather was perfect
and the students really enjoyed the experience.

Corrie Williams from the Monash Science Centre and three
of the mothers of the students also joined in the fun day.



They all tried very hard to find fossil bones and some
of them were successful.  Well done girls!



Among the other visitors to the site that day were Don and
Geraldine Johnson (grandma and poppy). They sent a
special hello to their grandson who is mad about dinosaurs.

Singapore Dreaming

Gerry instructs three of the students on how to recognise fossils in the rock

Mary supervises another group

Singapore Dreamers at the dig site

Visitors from Singapore

This weekend "Prof Pat" brought 14 science students from Singapore visit the dig site.
Although it was quite hot on Saturday, Gerry and a few enthusiastic students took some rock off the top of "Prep Rock". The students found a handful of bones including a probable vertebra.

Feet

Here are some feet from this field season. I'll buy fancy coffee (delivered on-site next season) for the first person to correctly identify to whom they all belong! Hint: All photos were taken on February 2nd.

A. Drilling:

B. Digging:
C. Hammering in the plug:

That's all, folks

So, we've packed up the house and moved out for another year.
In 4 weeks work, we catalogued over 500 bones and teeth including (at least) two ornithopod dinosaur jaws and one mammal jaw. We rediscovered "plugs and feathers" and played with a beatiful new drill to make them. We had lots of wonderful meals and drank just a little beer, red wine and sherry. We caught up with old friends and made new ones. We got dirty and sunburnt and insect bitten. We played silly card games and practical jokes. We glorified in "swim o'clock". We hit huge amounts of rock with hammers. We worked hard and slept little.
Can't wait until next year!