Thursday 4th June - Richmond

Thursday 4^th June

On Thursday we went to Kronosaurus Korner and in Kronosaurus Korner although it WAS in the middle of the sea there was a mummified Minmi body. After Kronosaurus Korner we went to a quarry that is used for road rubble but now it is also used for a place where you can look for fossils. Dad found a phalange of an Icthyisaur. (A phalange is a finger bone).

This is me with a statue of Minmi.

This is the mummified Minmi.

This is us with the phalange.

Mum's note:
We drove to Richmond this morning. There are lots of amazing specimens in the museum at Kronosaurus Korner. My favourite is the nearly complete plesiosaur skeleton found in a creek bank by local farmers. But the mummified, fossilised Minmi is also very spectacular.

Amazing plesiosaur skeleton.

My next favourite item on display is an ancient turtle Notochelone, that was found inside a moon rock. Moon rocks are bizarre rocks that often hold fossils inside due to the process that leads to their formation. The skull has been removed from the moon rock and fully prepared.

Some small moon rock examples.

Part of the moon rock that contained turtle shell and bone fossils. 

The extracted turtle skull fossil! It has been amazingly preserved due to the moon rock formation process. Normally fossils are flattened, but this skull was protected by the moon rock that formed around it.
It looks astonishingly like a modern turtle skull.

After our tour around the museum we went on the Digging at Dusk tour with Dr. Tim Holland and Sam. This tour occurs at the free fossil fossicking sites, but has the advantage of having an expert to show you the sorts of fossils you can expect and comment on your finds as you find them. For the first half of the tour we fossicked in the loose dirt and rocks pushed up by the quarry machinery. We found fossilised coprolites, clam, a tiny shark tooth, clam, lots of "fish mash" including scales, and clam. Did I mention fossilised clam? Much of the limestone is fossilised clam and nothing to write home about - but Caleb was very excited about every piece of it, much to Dr. Tim's, Sam's and our amusement.

Fossil fossicking at Richmond with Dr. Tim Hammond of Kronosaurus Korner.

Later Dr. Tim suggested we try lifting some rock layers to see what we could find. This is when we really hit pay-dirt!

Choosing a site to move some rock.

After some initial false excitement caused by a fossil-shaped blob that turned out to be nothing, Paul then turned over this.......

This is the rock lift off of a badly preserved Ichthyosaur vertebra. 

Removing rock from the vertebra.

No one really expected the vertebra to hold together once the rock was disturbed, but Paul decided to give it a go anyway. As expected, the vertebra fell apart, but out of the rubble emerged this.....

Our Ichthyosaur phalange (flipper bone - equivalent to one of your finger bones).

Further rock excavation failed to produce anything more exciting before our tour ended at 5pm, but we were pretty pleased with our afternoon when we headed back to Richmond!