Sarah's Burra Trip  - July 16th to 18th 2004

On Sarah's last trip to Burra she discovered the large cap of a bone. Unfortunately we had to leave 30 minutes after this great discovery but at least we had a reason to return!

The large cap of the bone (seen in picture above) turned into a large femur. This was from the same Diprotodon that Sarah has already discovered and prepared many of the bones at the Museum. As you can see from this photo while trying to excavate the specimen more and more bone was getting in the way! But this is a good thing, as no complete skeleton has been found of this animal before. The fact that one side of the jaw was still attached to the skull could mean that the whole animal is somewhere very close by!

We were asked by National Parks and Wildlife how we were going to stop the erosion problems in the national park we are working in. Our solution is better than anything they are trying! We are flattening the land and filling in the gullies. We have filled in 2 gullies and removed many cubic metres of dirt every trip. It is paying off as under the 3 meters of dirt, out comes the most amazing preserved fossils! People at work have said to Sarah that her discovery is the most well prepared Diprotodon Skull that has ever been found. Under the blue tarp is where the bones that Sarah is working on are.

Near Aarons legs, you can see another femur from another Diprotodon that Carey discovered. These bones are about 2 metres higher than the specimen that Sarah is working on so this is most defiantly another animal.

A close up of the femur of Carey's, It is not as well preserved as the one Sarah found as it has been buried in different sediments.

Sarah and Carey plastered the specimen getting it ready to take back and clean up in the lab.

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