Dinosaur Dreaming

On site: Uncovering the hole

Because of the location of the dig site, high tide covers the fossil-bearing rock with sand. Whenever the team want to continue the excavation work, cubic metres of sand must first be removed. As the excavation hole gets deeper and wider, even more sand must be removed. It's back-breaking work just to get to the rock we want to remove!

In 1998, the team experimented with ways to cover the hole so that it doesn't get filled with sand every high tide.

During the 1999 field season, a refined version of this technique was used, with some success. (For those of you with environmental concerns, rest assured that at the end of the season, all of the hole-covering materials are removed and placed in storage, and the beach once again reclaims the site. The following pictures give some idea of how it was done...

Removing the cover | Pumping the water | Sweeping out the hole