Searching for Inverloch’s elusive dinosaurs

INVERLOCH’s very own dinosaurs have been found lurking in fossilised form along the Bass Coast between Inverloch and Cape Paterson. Volunteers from Dinosaur Dreaming have uncovered a fragment of a dinosaur claw thought to be 120 million years old and a bone fragment from a river turtle embedded in the banks of an ancient Big River.

Heading up the Dinosaur Dreaming project is world-renowned paleontologist and geologist Dr Patricia Vickers Rich Emerita Professor from Monash University and Dr Thomas Rich Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Museums Victoria.

Dinosaur Dreaming volunteers returned to the rocky coast between Cape Paterson and Inverloch last week to resume their search for Inverloch’s elusive dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Dreaming has been uncovering home-grown dinosaurs for 25 years.

Twenty specimens have already been collected for analysis in the laboratories of Monash University including a bone fragment from a river turtle thought to have lived 120 million years ago on the banks of Big River which stretched from Mallacoota to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia is thought to have been as wide and deep as the Ganges River.

Traces of sedimentary rock laid down by Big River over millions of years can be clearly seen on the cliffs overlooking Twin Reefs along with ancient coal seams unrelated to the much younger black coal found in Wonthaggi. Big River was likely a kilometre wide and 25m deep and home to a large number of prehistoric animals.

The first dinosaur dig was in 1984 along the Otway Coast, but interest soon switched to the Bass Coast in 1994, and dinosaur digs have continued in this area ever since.

One of the most common discoveries has been a dinosaur the size of a wallaby although the dinosaur wallaby did not hop. Another bone fragment found last week was thought to be the claw of a dinosaur the size of a kangaroo.

“We will know a lot more when we remove it from the rock in the laboratory,” said Volunteer Coordinator Wendy White.

Dinosaurs known to have roamed the Bass Coast include flying reptiles Cretaceous Pterosauria discovered at Dinosaur Cove, and the Plesiosaurs a group of long-necked marine reptiles resembling the famed Loch Ness Monster.

Fifty volunteers from Melbourne, Adelaide and the Bass Coast are chipping their way through the concrete like rocks in the intertidal zone at Twin Reefs.

“In past years students have travelled from Japan, Germany and the Netherlands to join the Dinosaur Dreaming dig on the Bass Coast,” said Wendy.

For more information about Dinosaur Dreaming go to dinosaurdreaming.net