9 September 2012 – Afternoon Tea with Dinosaurs

Posted on 4 September, 2012 by Connecting Country

Dinosaurs don’t tend to crop up much in Landcare talks – especially in our area, where the sedimentary rocks are too old to contain the remains of anything that walked on land. But there have been dinosaur fossils discovered in Victoria, and some of them will be making their way to Newstead Community Centre during Landcare Week.

Renowned Australian palaeontologists Dr Tom Rich and his wife Professor Pat Vickers-Rich will be giving a talk on ‘Victoria’s Polar Dinosaurs’ at the Newstead Community Centre on the 9th of September, and they’ve promised to bring some ‘real dinosaurs’ with them.

Victoria’s Polar Dinosaurs roamed the earth over 100 million years ago when Australia was still linked to Antarctica. Much of this southern continent lay inside the Antarctic Circle and the animals that lived there were highly adapted to the extreme climate. Pat and Tom will talk about the “mega- and microfauna” of the time, and discuss possible causes for their demise.

Much of what we know about the animals that lived in ‘Polar Australia’ comes from the work of this industrious couple, especially at Dinosaur Cove on the Otway coast, where they tunnelled for fossils using mining equipment and explosives. Their work over the past 40 years has been recognised internationally and they are also award-winning authors of numerous books about Australia’s dinosaurs. The talk is free and afternoon tea will be provided. Please RSVP to Max by the 5th September.

When: Sunday 9th September
Where: Newstead Community Centre
Time: 3:30pm