Rockbreaking comfort

Sarah demonstrates option 1

Sarah demonstrates option 2

Dave has been trialling new lightweight rock breaking stations for use at the field house next season. Here you can see a couple of prototypes set up in the back yard at Dave and Sarah's house. Regular diggers should feel free to add any other suggestions as comments - I'll deliver a free fancy coffee to the Flat Rocks site next season to anyone who makes a suggestion that gets incorporated into the new design.



The great flood

A photo from the bottom of the stair
 at the dig site yesterday - thanks Mike!

John builds a stand for our digital microscope

Remember the digital microscope that Dennis O'Donnell (the Wonthaggi optometrist) donated last year? We’d been finding it a little hard to use since we needed one hand to hold the fossil, one hand to hold the ‘scope, a bit of a jiggle to get it into focus and then quickly use the last remaining hand (or nose) to press the camera button. So I elicited the aid of John and look what he’s built us! We’ll have fun next year taking close-ups of all the teeth we find.

The stand

In profile

Otways bone identified as Spinosaur

Check out the article in today's age.  A bone found by Mike Cleeland and George Caspar in 2005 has been identified as a Spinosaur.

Dino Footprints from Milanesia Beach

Check out the article in today's age talking about the footprints that Dr Tom Rich and Dr Tony Martin found on their Great Cretaceous Walk.

Mice

Lesley reports that mice broke into her shed and ate all of the stored Inverloch supplies.  They especially liked the toilet paper.  Apparently, they ate all of the tinfoil off some leftover chocolate eggs, but left the chocolate behind.  Which does beg the question - how on earth did we manage to have leftover chocolate at the end of a dig?

Likely dig dates

We have discussed some likely dig dates for the 2011/12 Field Season.

1. Field Report day in mid October (maybe the 16th)
2. Training day at Flat Rocks early November (maybe the 6th)
3. Flat Rocks dig 3 weeks in February (maybe starting the 11th since that gives us the best tides)
4. Eric the Crayfish dig 10 days in late March (maybe the 24th but we'll need to check with Bimbi)

Regular volunteers and Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming should hear from us shortly.