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So with this affirmation from my field partners spurring me on, I resumed
measuring track dimensions and writing notes, then took photographs. Greg helped
with the data collection, acting as a scribe with my field notebook as I measured
lengths, widths, and depths of the footprints with digital calipers.
Aswedidthis,IcouldtellTom'smindhadgonesomewhereotherthangather-
ingdataaboutthedinosaurtracks.Atsomepointheaskedtoborrowmytapemeas-
ure, and he immediately went about measuring the length, width, and thickness of
the slab. He sat down, wrote in his notebook, and then revealed what he was think-
ing.
“Greg, do you think we could get a front-end loader down here to take this
up?”
I was surprised by Tom's question but shouldn't have been. As an ichnologist,
I've never been much of a collector. My work normally consists of describing,
sketching, measuring, and photographing trace fossils, recording their locality in-
formation,thensayinggoodbye,sometimesneverseeingthemagain.Afterall,Idid
not have either a museum with storage space or research labs at my disposal, let
alone collection managers and the means for picking up large heavy rocks. On the
other hand, Tom has all of these amenities available to him, along with a collecting
permit. In Great Otway National Park—which is where we were—no fossils could
be taken without the written permission of the Australian government, but Tom and
Pat had that.
So Tom wasn't planning to let this big hunk of rock stay here on Milanesia
Beach,butinsteadwasalreadyplottinghowtoputitinMuseumVictoria.Hisscrib-
blings consisted of back-of-the-envelope calculations of the approximate length,
width, and height measurements of the rock. This then yielded its approximate
volume, which he then multiplied by the probable density of the rock. Because it
had alternating layers of sandstone and siltstone, which consisted mostly of quartz
and other silica-bearing minerals, it was about 2.7 grams/cubic centimeter, or more
