ON THE TRAIL OF DINOSAURS

15^th September, 2012

To the east of Winton is a working research facility located on top of a mesa called The Jump-Up. 

The Age of Dinosaurs building on top of The Jump-Up

As we approach the facility we know that dinosaurs are not far away when we come to the gate.

Dinosaur Gate

And outside the Age of Dinosaurs building we come face to face with ‘Banjo’ – a large meat eating dinosaur.

Wok makes friends with 'Banjo'

There are two buildings here and as we walk along the track to the laboratory we find a modern day dinosaur out taking a stroll.

Just out for my morning constitutional ...

At nearly six foot long we gave this perentie a wide berth.  At the lab we were greeted by Carl who gave us a tour of the large shed where all the hard work in scraping and drilling the soil and rock from the fossils is undertaken.  He introduces us to the newest dinosaur that has been discovered – ‘Wade’ – which has yet to be given a scientific name and looks as though it will be larger than any dinosaur previously discovered in Australia.

Carl looks kind of small next to this dinosaur leg

He is dwarfed by the leg bones of ‘Elliot’ which prompted scientific digs to be undertaken on Elderslie Station in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  When the fossils are uncovered at the digs they are carefully cocooned in plaster of paris to protect them while being transported.

Fossils being transported through Winton

Along one wall of the lab are rows and rows of cocoons.

Fossils waiting to be discovered

Carl explains that the digs are producing more fossils than can be processed at the lab.  Even with volunteers working in the labs there are fossils in the cocoons that won’t see the light of day for months, maybe years.  Seeing that they haven’t seen the light of day for over 95 million years we guess a few more months or years won’t make a lot of difference to the fossils.  On a table in the lab Carl shows us the ribs he has been working on.

A jigsaw puzzle of ribs

It has taken him three weeks to put together all the pieces of bone that make up the ribs.  As he says it is sometimes like a giant jigsaw puzzle.  At the next table a volunteer was patiently jack hammering rock away from around a fossil with the smallest tungsten tipped jack hammer we have ever seen.

You have to be patient when working on fossils

What painstaking work this is!  We make our way back to the main building where we are shown into a temperature controlled room where the dinosaur bones already uncovered are on display.

Some of the dinosaur bones on display in the temperature controlled room

It is amazing to think that most of the discoveries have only been made in recent years and the guides are telling us that greater discoveries are happening as they speak and the future looks bright for dinosaurs in Australia.  We make our way back to camp and in the morning pack a picnic basket.  We are off on a day trip to Lark Quarry Conservation Park which is 110 kilometres south of Winton.  Along the way we detour through Bladensburg National Park and stop to take a look at Skull Hole.

Skull Hole

This was the site of an aboriginal massacre in the 1800’s when in retaliation for the murder of a teamster the entire tribe was murdered by black troopers.  Back out on the road to the quarry we stop to let a mother emu and her five chicks cross the road.

Three emu chicks crossing the road - two have already made it

The gravel road isn’t too heavily corrugated and in eighty kilometres we only see two other vehicles.  The track to the quarry winds through rocky outcrops until finally we see the state of the art building that has been designed to protect the dinosaur tracks from deterioration.

The Dinosaur Trackways building at Lark Quarry

Inside the temperature controlled building Vern takes us on a guided tour.  Here 3,300 dinosaur tracks have become embedded in the shale and sandstone.

Yes 3,300 dinosaur footprints ... palaentologist Mary Wade counted every one of them

This is the site of the world’s only known dinosaur stampede.  About 95 million years ago Western Queensland looked quite different than it does today.  Rainfall was more than a meter per year and conifers and ferns were abundant in a flat landscape of creeks and rivers meandering to an inland sea.  A group of a few hundred dinosaurs consisting of Coelurosaurs (about the size of a chicken) and herbivorous Omithopods (about the size of an emu) were grazing at the side of a creek.  The tracks of a much larger carnosaur (meat eating dinosaur) can be seen heading towards the smaller dinosaurs.

Large dinosaur footprints are on the right

The large dinosaur caused a panicked stampede.  The footprints of the carnosaur match those of a megaraptor species – like ‘Banjo’.  The tracks lay undisturbed for 95 million years until the early 1960’s when Glen Seymour, the manager of a nearby grazing station, spotted something unusual.  The first footprints were excavated in 1971 and the current site was excavated in 1976/1977 and named Lark Quarry after Malcolm Lark who was the first volunteer and removed more rock than anyone else.  The large dinosaur tracks are easy to see

Carnosaur tracks

and the whole of the rock is covered with the tiny tracks of the smaller dinosaurs.

Tracks of smaller dinosaurs

It is like a snapshot into the past.  A small moment in time 95 million years ago has been engraved for us to see.  It’s fascinating!  After the tour we take a walk around the site

Wok takes a stroll at Lark Quarry

and Wok spots a small descendant of those ancient dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs still exist at Lark Quarry - well tiny ones anyway!

It sort of feels right that there should be a tiny dinosaur still roaming free here.  It may not be as large as the dinosaurs that made the trackways but this dragon is just as fascinating … and it won’t chase us down and have us for dinner.  That has to be good thing don’t you think?