THIS week a team of ‘dino hunters’ have embarked on the first ‘dinosaur dig’ at Inverloch since the COVID-19 pandemic, as Bass Coast Shire Council ramps up plans for a $40 million world-class Dinosaurs Trail to celebrate the area’s fascinating pre-historic heritage.
The team of 20, including leading palaeontologists, researchers and volunteers will start excavating sections of the intertidal (foreshore) zone at Flat Rocks near The Caves, south of Inverloch, looking for fossilised bones and evidence of the prehistoric age.
The Caves is a well-known site that harbours precious polar dinosaur fossils dating back 126 million years. It will also become one of the sites in the planned Bass Coast Dinosaurs Trail, which is now in its design phase.
As part of the dinosaur dig, which is expected to run for ten days, the team will painstakingly dig by hand down more than 1m of sand and water from the foreshore to create an excavation site, around 2.5m by 5m in size.
Experts will then remove the fossil layer with hammers and long chisels before examining the rock for fossilised dinosaur bones and other material of interest.
Dinosaur Dreaming dig coordinator Lesley Kool said the group had excavated The Caves site for 20 consecutive seasons from 1994 to 2013, unearthing close to 20,000 fossilised bones of dinosaurs, mostly micro fossils no larger than 5cm.
“It’s a unique part of the coastline because in this area the rocks have been dated to around 126 million years so they’re some of the oldest Cretaceous rocks in Australia,” said Mrs Kool.
Bass Coast Shire Council CEO Ali Wastie said today is a big day onsite, “we have brought all our creatives together who are working on the Bass Coast Dinosaurs Trail design project, including architects, creative technologists, and Phoria and together their all looking at the six creative sites around Bass Coast.
“The dig was a good opportunity for each member of the project to come together and meet some of the worlds most renowned palaeontologists who are right here in Bass Coast,” said Ms Wastie.
