Mammal Jaw Movement

A number of our mammal jaws recently took a trip to Japan.  Over there, Dr Tom Rich used some fancy scanning equipment to image partially prepared mammal jaws from the Victorian Cretaceous.
I am starting to hear rumours that the gracile jaw I found and the tiny one that Gerry found are "very interesting".  Hopefully Tom will tell us all about it at the Field Report presentation.  We're just about ready to lock in Sunday 16th October for this, so crew members and friends should save the date.

Press coverage of of our spinosaur

Global Post
Live Science
Science
The Conversation
Australian Geographic

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.