today I am in New Plymouth on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand
and I am with Dave Allen .Dave Allen has been searching the local landscape for
fossils for many years. so Dave I'll be asking you to perhaps show us some of
your specimens ,some of your findings and to tell us a little bit about what the
journey of discovery that you've been on with fossils. Cool well Julian growing up
on the south coast of England - known as the Jurassic Coast I kind of was
pushed into fossils as a young kid at the age of 8 or 9 and then
coming to New Zealand in the early 70s I didn't think New Zealand really had
much until I had an injury in about 2000 and while lying in bed
I thought well to get physical again I need to go and
do some walking and stuff and so out walking I started finding fossils and
did a bit of research and found more and more. And Taranaki has some amazing
fossils. I will coolect anything that I can carry home. This was one of
the first ones I ever found on the beach. when I first arrived in New Zealand. I dug it
out of the bank, peeled the shell off and that was what was left
but without polishing it that came out shiny. But I could go to the beach and I
will find things like fish - I would break a rock open and in this rock is a there's a
skull of a fish in a bit of backbone. And these white pieces that you can see here,
in the brain of the fish are actually fossil otoliths which are the ear bones.
There's a scapula of a seal, scapula or shoulder blade. And then we have
things like this. It is actually a shark vertebra, a big shark. And there's a fish
up here on the top shelf, a little puffer fish that hasn't been identified yet.
It's a new species. Most of these rocks from the Taranaki area maybe 5 to 8
million years old. You can go further afield and you can find stuff that's way older
Also in my drawers I have lots of
different pieces. So this is a tooth I found down the South Island. It was in a
Shelly Rock just like that and I cracked the rock open and there's the tooth,
it was sitting inside like that. It's like King Arthur, the sword in the stone!
This one here is very special. It's a dolphin disc or vertebral disc and on
that disc was an ear bone of a dolphin. But Taranaki is well known for its
monstrous crabs. These crabs are some of the biggest around. and Taranaki has an
amazing variety of crabs. We have little spider crabs to other normal crabs.
These claws come from a paddle crab. They just come straight out of the rock like that.
The crabs are what got me started really. I read an article in the newspaper
saying that a woman had found a crab out at Mount Damper and that was it.
I was in the car that weekend out to Mount Damper to find stuff and it took me
years to find one. But I find them all the time now and there's another big one
with another with a big claw. Good hobby that keeps me out of trouble!
So this space here is like my little workshop. I try to keep the dust to a
minimum because dust is everywhere. I have lights to light up my area. This is
what I've been working on recently which is a little crayfish. These are the
concretions I find. Mainly grey boulders with white shells and stuff
sticking out of them. That's my telltale mark I look for and when I do
crack them open and have a look - what we have in here is - you can't tell just yet
because I haven't really done any work on it - but that is the face of a vertebra
of a little whale. This is the top of the vertebra and this in here in the other
part of the rock has the top part of the vertebra on it. It will end up
a bit like that'. It's the same type of vertebra. I use an air tool. These work very
similar to like a tattoo gun but instead of putting ink in you are
taking rock away. And I also use a Dremel. It spins with a blade on. I can take
away little pieces of rock at a time small layer by small layer. So this is a
penguin which I've been working on which I found recently on the beach. I have
other penguin bits and pieces here which I use to indetify these .This is
the humerus of a little blue and this is the humerus of the penguins we're
finding. You see how the little blue is quite a bit smaller than this penguin
which is a medium-sized penguin. These are all things I found on the beach I
used them to identify and place fossils I find so say this here,
which is a dolphin vertebra, it would have been somewhere in around that part
of the skeleton. So I can look at my fossils and identify where they were in
the actual skeleton. I also have albatross, petrels,
seals when you are collecting stuff and finding stuff on the beach you should always
treat it with a bit of respect. I also record GPS coordinates of where I find
them and where they were on the beach. They are of scientific interest and
in the future anyone can look at this stuff and use it in research. All around
the world people are interested in stuff from here. It's one of the best
places for finding marine mammals and birds anywhere. New Zealand is full of
fossils. you just need to get out there and do a lot of walking and have a lot of
luck. Thanks very much Dave! No worries - thank you!