Vanished Giants of Western Australia
Sep. 16th, 2003 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eDamn! On Wednesday night I am going to my last computer club meeting down here in Melbourne before departing for QLD. This kind of talk is one of the reasons I'm a little reluctant to move north... pity I will miss it. Melbourne is sooooo cool!
Monash Science Centre Guest Lecture - Melbourne
Vanished Giants of Western Australia
Dr John Long Guest Lecture
Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology, The Western Australian Museum
7.30pm Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Cost $8.00/$5.00
Dr John Long began collecting fossils at the age of 7. After graduating with a Ph. D from Monash University, John's research work has focussed on the early evolution of fishes in Australia and other parts of Gondwana.
John has published over 110 scientific papers and more than 70 popular science articles. In 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Eureka Prize for the Promotion of Science.
John recently featured on "The Dinosaur Dealers", a TV series that examined the international world of fossil trade - legal and illegal.
From the Kimberley to the remote Nullarbor, Western Australia has produced some of the world's best fossil sites. This talk will look at some of the most important fossil finds, and highlight some of the largest creatures known to have inhabited our continent.
At Gogo, in the Kimberley, superbly preserved fossil fishes of Devonian age (370 million years old) can be prepared out of the rock to reveal beautiful preservation of their bones and perichondral cartilages. Some recent finds from Gogo are presented. One fish, from strata above the Gogo Formation, Westralichthys, was the largest armoured fish so far found in Australia. Although it reached about 3 metres in length, its close cousins from other sites in Gondwana reached 8 metres or more.
Broome, 130 million years ago, was possibly home to the largest dinosaurs that walked anywhere on the Earth. Individual sauropod tracks measuring up to 1.3 metres across have now been described, and these scale up to similar sized titanosaurids from South America (estimated at up to 80 tonnes in weight). In addition to meat-eating theropods approximately 10 metres long, smaller theropods and plant-eaters, Broome was home to armoured yreophorans (possibly stegosaurids) and huge ornithopods of similar size to Muttaburrasaurus from Queensland.
Spectacular discoveries from caves in the eastern Nullarbor reveal a menagerie of extinct giants that roamed the semi-arid regions of southern Western Australia. These include complete skeletons of our largest mammalian land predator, Thylacoleo, as well as 3 metre high short-faced kangaroos, giant wombats and a host of weird new species of kangaroos.
Please call 9905 1370 or email helen.rayner@sci.monash.edu.au to register your attendance.
Monash Science Centre, Building 74 (access via Normanby Rd), Monash University, Clayton Campus
www.sci.monash.edu.au/msc
Monash Science Centre Guest Lecture - Melbourne
Vanished Giants of Western Australia
Dr John Long Guest Lecture
Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology, The Western Australian Museum
7.30pm Wednesday, October 1, 2003
Cost $8.00/$5.00
Dr John Long began collecting fossils at the age of 7. After graduating with a Ph. D from Monash University, John's research work has focussed on the early evolution of fishes in Australia and other parts of Gondwana.
John has published over 110 scientific papers and more than 70 popular science articles. In 2001, he was awarded the prestigious Eureka Prize for the Promotion of Science.
John recently featured on "The Dinosaur Dealers", a TV series that examined the international world of fossil trade - legal and illegal.
From the Kimberley to the remote Nullarbor, Western Australia has produced some of the world's best fossil sites. This talk will look at some of the most important fossil finds, and highlight some of the largest creatures known to have inhabited our continent.
At Gogo, in the Kimberley, superbly preserved fossil fishes of Devonian age (370 million years old) can be prepared out of the rock to reveal beautiful preservation of their bones and perichondral cartilages. Some recent finds from Gogo are presented. One fish, from strata above the Gogo Formation, Westralichthys, was the largest armoured fish so far found in Australia. Although it reached about 3 metres in length, its close cousins from other sites in Gondwana reached 8 metres or more.
Broome, 130 million years ago, was possibly home to the largest dinosaurs that walked anywhere on the Earth. Individual sauropod tracks measuring up to 1.3 metres across have now been described, and these scale up to similar sized titanosaurids from South America (estimated at up to 80 tonnes in weight). In addition to meat-eating theropods approximately 10 metres long, smaller theropods and plant-eaters, Broome was home to armoured yreophorans (possibly stegosaurids) and huge ornithopods of similar size to Muttaburrasaurus from Queensland.
Spectacular discoveries from caves in the eastern Nullarbor reveal a menagerie of extinct giants that roamed the semi-arid regions of southern Western Australia. These include complete skeletons of our largest mammalian land predator, Thylacoleo, as well as 3 metre high short-faced kangaroos, giant wombats and a host of weird new species of kangaroos.
Please call 9905 1370 or email helen.rayner@sci.monash.edu.au to register your attendance.
Monash Science Centre, Building 74 (access via Normanby Rd), Monash University, Clayton Campus
www.sci.monash.edu.au/msc