Dinosaur Expeditions C.I.C. - The Story so far…… Part 7

With mild weather in mid-November we decided to conduct the second survey of the cliffs after recent rainfall.

The cliffs were boggy, with large slumps of soft mudflows, which made accessing sites difficult and in several cases impossible.

Several bones were found (not the small theropod we had hoped for) but from an unfortunate sea bird! Interesting from a modern taphonomy perspective though.

We were able to discover another four previously unknown sites mostly producing fresh water bivalves, more Hybodont shark spines and fusain preserved fossilised wood. Sadly no significant bone discoveries were made except for isolated fragments discovered on the flint gravel shingle below the high tide level of the beach.

This would be the last survey of the year with the next survey due in February 2015.

Dinosaur Expeditions C.I.C. - The Story so far...... Part 5

With the Dinosaur Expeditions Centre temporarily closed for renovations work, we took the opportunity to survey the cliffs between Cowleaze Chine and Barnes High (opposite the Dinosaur Farm).

Oliver was joined by volunteers Ashley and Paul. On previous solo fossil hunting expeditions Ashley discovered a rare theropod (meat-eating dinosaur) tibia (lower leg bone) and a decade earlier, Paul discovered a rare theropod dorsal vertebra (back bone). So if there was anything to be found there was a good chance we would be able to find it.

We made our way over Barnes High and searched high and low for three days. We identified nine sites and found Hybodont shark spines, fresh water pond mussel bivalves, fossil wood and several dinosaur bones.

The survey produced several highlights. Paul found a small Theropod (meat-eating dinosaur) phalange (toe bone), Ashley found part of a large unidentified sacral (hip) vertebra and Oliver found an isolated Anteophalmosuchus (Goniopholis) crocodile tooth!