2010 Field Report

Dinosaur Dreaming is pleased to announce that our 2010 Field Report has been published.  Friends and crew unable to attend the launch at the Museum last week should get theirs in the mail shortly.

Not that I'm biased or anything, but I think it looks great.  56 pages and over 20 separate authors.  Thanks to all contributors, to Alanna for layout, design and, well, making it all happen, and to Dave for letting us use his vollies for stapling and for giving us red wine and salty snacks when we really (really) needed them.

Note to Friends and Diggers

Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming and Dinosaur Dreaming crew past and present are reminded that the Field Report Presentation is this Saturday and the Melbourne Museum.
Where : Activity Rooms B and C, Ground Floor, Melbourne Museum
When: 1 pm to 3 pm Saturday 23 October 2010
If you are not a Friend of Dinosaur Dreaming you can join at http://dinosaurdreaming.monash.edu/friends/index.html.

Testing the new dig house

This weekend, a small group of dinosaur dreamers gave the new Cape Paterson dig house a dry run.

Big backyard for tents

The house has a big downstairs area

And a veranda

We broke rock in Lesley's driveway

Reprocessing

Anthony, Jillian and Paul work diligently

Peggy demoralises a rock.

We were a little distracted by the old newspapers used for wrapping the rocks that we reprocessed.


Andrew gets distracted by 2004

Jacqui reads an old quiz

Paul enjoys the sunshine

We did do some serious work! 

Jillian watches John and Anthony work




Mike guards a growing tower of empty boxes





My dino badge

Jacqui wins a FISH badge

Gerry shows support from the sidelines.

 

Dave feels the cold in the morning



The Field Report is coming along well.

Alanna works on the 2010 Field Report



Geology Field Trip

Yesterday, we used the Monash University First Year Geology Field Trip as a good excuse to check out "Swim O'clock Rock", which we might remove in 2011 (unfortunately, John, our excavation manager, was not at site so we'll need to show him this rock later).  There were 8 existing rock saw extraction holes, and we found another 6 surface bones.
Dave, Lesley and Stephen confer before more scrutiny of the bones on the surface.

 

There were about 150 students on the beach, and several instructors in hi-vis vests;.

We circled the bones in yellow crayon and extracted a couple of them.  The rest we left in situ for today's field trip (another 100 students!).

One of the students brought along "Fluffy, destroyer of worlds until evolution destroyed him".  They pose with Dave.

The Artist and the Scientists

The Artist and the Scientists was launched last night at Treetops in the Melbourne Museum.  A number of Peter's original artworks were on display, and he and Pat Vickers-Rich talked about the book and the collaboration process.

Check it out at http://www.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521162999.

Rock-breaking

We are currently planning a rock-breaking weekend focusing on examining and reprocessing low-rated wrapped fossils from prior years.  This will give us a chance to do a dry run of our new house in Cape Paterson and figure out what we would need to bring to get it functioning at fully capacity in February.

The concretion Mike found

Avid readers of this blog will remember that Mike found a concretion in the shore platform that we all got excited about: http://dinodreaming.blogspot.com/2010/02/final-week-3-crew-shots.html.  Once it was back in the lab, it looked a lot like fish.  But Dave has started preparing it, and we're starting to hear small excited noises from the lab.  Although he's still trying to figure out what it might be.  Hopefully he'll know more by the time the Field Report is published (mark October 23rd in your diary).