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to overwinter during cold, dark, harsh times in polar environments. For one, the
Cretaceous rocks of Victoria abounded with evidence for hypsilophodonts, small
ornithopods morphologically similar to
Oryctodromeus
and
Orodromeus
in North
America. For another, such dinosaurs were too small to have migrated long dis-
tances between seasons. Thirdly, many modern polar vertebrates, from puffins to
polar bears, burrow into dirt or snow to take refuge in those harsh environments.
Consequently, in January 2009, I sent the paper to the journal
Cretaceous Research
and kept fingers, toes, and thumbs crossed that it would be received favorably.
The paper was reviewed in a timely way and fortunately was not rejected out-
right. Still, the reviewers and editor expressed concern about its content, requir-
ing responses to specific points. As mentioned before, this is where many scientists
might give up on both revising and resubmitting a manuscript, without the guar-
antee of acceptance. However, I had already planned to go back to Australia and
promptly put Knowledge Creek on my itinerary to answer a few questions, such as
the exact nature of the sedimentary rocks surrounding the structures I claimed to be
dinosaur burrows.
Thus my third (and perhaps last) visit to Knowledge Creek took place in May
2009. This time only three of us went: my wife Ruth (her second visit); Mike Hall
from Monash University of Australia, an experienced field geologist who also was
an expert on sediments and sedimentary rocks; and myself. Mike had never been
there, and it had been long enough for me that we became disoriented and dis-
placed—some might call it “lost”—on the way down to the site. This was a dis-
heartening déjà vu for Ruth, echoing her experience from three years previous with
me and other geologists, and justifiably shaking her faith in our navigational abil-
ities. Her unease grew more pronounced when Mike proposed that we circumvent
the nearby sheer sea-cliffs by following a wallaby trail through the thick coastal
scrub forest. Travails notwithstanding, we made it to the site okay, and once more
Ruth and I stood together on the nearly flat marine platform of Cretaceous strata
