Excavation of the fossil layer on the first day of the Dinosaur Dreaming 2006 dig.
Image: Lesley Kool
Source: Lesley Kool
Each year since 1994, volunteers from all walks of life and many different parts of the world participate in a six week excavation at Victoria’s only organised dinosaur fossil dig.
Excavation of the Flat Rocks site at Inverloch first began under the direction of Dr Tom Rich, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Museum Victoria, and Professor Pat Vickers-Rich, Chair in Palaeontology at Monash University, with generous financial assistance from National Geographic and the Australian Research Council.
That initial field season was affectionately named 'Dinosaur Dreaming'. Over the following twelve field seasons more than 10 000 fossil bones and teeth of various species of dinosaurs and other animals have been collected.
Commencing on Sunday 22 January, the 2006 field season ran until Sunday 4 March. It is expected to result in the cataloguing of approximately 1000 more fossil bones and teeth, with hopes of finding evidence of new species of pre-historic animals.
Museum Victoria’s Discovery Centre assisted with the recruitment and training of volunteers for this year’s dig, and a number of Museum staff volunteered to participate in the extraction of fossil material.
The Dinosaur Dreaming site is situated on a public beach and visitors were welcome to watch the crew at work. This year saw a visit from a film crew for ‘Coxy’s Big Break’, with a recently-aired segment about the dig featuring an interview with Museum Victoria’s Vertebrate Palaeontology Collection Manager, Dave Pickering.
History
In 1903 a single terminal toe bone was discovered at Eagles Nest, near Inverloch, Victoria, by geologist W.H. Ferguson. This carnivorous dinosaur specimen is referred to as the Cape Paterson Claw.
No further bones were located until 1978 when Tim Flannery, John Long (now Head of Science at Museum Victoria) and Rob Glenie retraced Ferguson's footsteps and found fossil bones in the Early Cretaceous sediments, including an astragalus (ankle bone) from an Allosaurus – like dinosaur.