Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
After photographing and noting the locations of these trace fossils, Greg and I
continueddowntheeasternextentofthebeach.Tom,ontheotherhand,hadalready
gone well ahead of us, looking for bones. I think he was glad that Greg was help-
ing with my ichnological investigations, which allowed him to concentrate more
on finding dinosaur bones or those of other vertebrates. In his previous scouting
of Milanesia Beach with others of his body-fossil-hunting ilk more than twenty
years before, they had not found any bones or teeth. As a result, they had since
written it off as a place to look for such fossils. But he also knew that during that
elapsedtime,rockfallsandweatheredsurfacesmighthaverevealedpreviouslyhid-
den fossil bones, new to human eyes.
Happy about the invertebrate burrows and their host rocks, I turned to Greg
as we sauntered down the beach and said, casually, “Now all we have to do is find
some of those other things we've been looking for. But I won't say what, because I
don't want to jinx it!” Greg grinned and said “Righto, say no more!” Somehow he
knew I was talking about dinosaur tracks. In our previous forays, I had mentioned
these trace fossils as something we should be looking for at every turn.
Tracing through Recent Time
What was the reason for such vigilance about dinosaur tracks? Well, up until that
day,onlyfourdinosaurtrackshadbeenfoundinalloftheCretaceousrocksofVict-
oria, a part of Australia just a bit smaller than California. The first track—the one
discoveredbyTomandPatatKnowledgeCreek—wasonlyabout10cm(4in)wide
andlong.Theyweredoublyfortunatethatday:onceforfindingthetrack,andtwice
for having the right tools to collect it. Using a hammer and chisel, they carved it
out of the rock, put it in a backpack, and hiked out of the site. Upon their return
to Melbourne, they immediately placed the specimen in the Museum Victoria fossil
collection.Thistracklaterbecamethetemplateforthousandsofreproductionsused
for science education in Victoria, and photographs of it appeared in many popular
articles and books.Inotherwords,itbecameiconic:Formanypeople,andformore
than twenty-five years, this was
the
dinosaur track from the Cretaceous of Victoria.
