Dinosaur Diggings - 2012

 The first week's dig for 2012 took place in late August in Winton. I missed last year, so was keen to get back to it all again.


(L - Out in the field searching for surface fragments)

We headed out of town on the Sunday morning, and after the safety induction we were off out into the field. We first visited an early site to see if we could see any more bones that had risen to the surface. We didn't find a lot, so moved on to another site. Another walk and not much found on the old site, but a few bone fragments found out in the scrub a little way away from the old site. So that has been registered for a future dig.

Then onto the main planned site - said to be quite rich in bones. But after a full day of searching we hadn't found much.

(R - Having identified a site we start to go under the surface, looking for more bones)

So the heavy equipment was called in - the loader. Dave cleared the overburden and then dug some soil out in 2cm passes - until the expected "bang" as he found the first bone. So we settled in for the digging.

However by the end of Day 2 (Monday) things were looking decidedly murky and no more bones appeared. So we moved again.

(L - Now we are getting serious - bring in the loader and really dig into the soil - until "bang")

Finding more surface bones, we started the grading again, in 2cm slices until the sought after "bang" of metal against bone. So we carefully removed that bone, and started in digging in earnest.

(R - Our pit is getting larger as we dig and spread out following "leads" of bones, like gold veins)



(L - Our group surveys the pit with a white jacketed parcel of bones??? waiting to be taken back to the Museum)

Apart from our day 4 (Wed) when we visited the Museum in town, we had a fairly good result, finding a number of bones. The problem was they were all mixed up together, so extrication was difficult. In the end some of the jackets encasing the bones had to be formed in such a way that the worst bones might be sacrificed.

So this year's week 1 finished on quite a high note, with some finds - which unfortunately we will not have identified for several years - as there is already a backlog at the Museum of around 25-30 years. But I guess these bones have been waiting to be discovered for some 95 million years, so what do a few more matter.

(R - Sunset falls over Winton)