Dinosaur Cove ##TOP##

Centers around a young boy, Riley Harrison (Brayden Eaton), who stumbles across a top-secret project in the small town of Dinosaur Cove. Reeling from the recent loss of his mother, Riley claims he has seen a real dinosaur, to which his dad Wyatt Harrison (Jared Withrow), and love interest Dr. Starr (Holly Houk) quickly write it off as a fantasy coping mechanism for his grief. However, the two villians Mr. Bigg (Mo El-Zaatari) and Dr. Vandersaurean (James Pilachowski) responsible for the creature and its accidental release, try in desperation to recover it and capture young Riley before the public finds out about their diabolical plans. With the help of Riley's newfound friends Mark (Regan Miller) and Savannah (Addilyn Houk), he begins an adventure of prehistoric proportions. Dinosaur Cove is directed by American actor / filmmaker Daniel Knudsen, director of the movies Late for Church, Creed of Gold, A Horse Called Bear, Courageous Love, Christmas Coupon, and Skydog previously. The screenplay is written by Derrick Steele. Crystal Creek Media will release Dinosaur Cove direct-to-VOD in the US coming up soon in 2022. Anyone?

Dinosaur Cove

Dinosaur Cove in Victoria, Australia is a fossil-bearing site in south-east of the continent where the Otway Ranges meet the sea to the west of Cape Otway, adjacent to Great Otway National Park (map).[1] The inaccessible ocean-front cliffs include fossil-bearing strata that date back to about 106 million years ago (MYA) and has provided discoveries important in research of natural history of dinosaurs in Australia and southern hemisphere as a whole.

During the Early Cretaceous the location was a flood plain within a great rift valley that formed as Australia started to separate northward from Antarctica. Sand, mud and silt deposits covered and sometimes preserved the remains of dead animals and plants. As the rift valley sank, the deposits were overlaid by sediment, which turned to rock under pressure. In the last 30 million years the sediments have been uplifted to form the Otway Ranges and Strzelecki Ranges, bringing them near the surface again.

75 years later, the exploration and excavation of the Dinosaur Cove site was conducted by teams of volunteers overseen by Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Rich. The dinosaur taxa, Leaellynasaura amicagraphica and Timimus hermani, are named for the children of the Riches', Tim and Leaellyn. Heavy mining equipment and dynamite was used to blast away overlying strata to uncover the fossiliferous rock layers in the cliff face. [3]

In the 1980s and 90s Dinosaur Cove yielded hypsilophodontid-like dinosaurs as Leaellynasaura amicagraphica and Atlascopcosaurus loadsi, and a Coelurosaur, as well as fragments of what may be a caenagnathid (relatives of the Oviraptors). One fossil from this diverse taxa, collectively called the "polar dinosaurs of Australia", has been interpreted as showing possible adaptations to vision in low light conditions and possibly were warm-blooded; this has been suggested as an explanation for how some of these dinosaurs foraged for food during the polar winter months. It is worth noting that although these dinosaurs lived at polar latitudes, the Cretaceous climate was significantly milder than today, so temperatures within the Antarctic and Arctic Circles were vastly different from the climate at these latitudes today, because the lopsided arrangements of the continents made sea currents and monsoon winds blow across the polar areas and not round and round them, and so stopped cold pools from developing around the poles.

This information has been developed from the publications:Sites of Geological and Geomorphological Significance in the Western Region of Melbourne (1986) by Neville RosengrenSites of Geological and Geomorphological Significance on the Coast of Port Phillip Bay (1988) by Neville Rosengren.Sites of Geological and Geomorphological Significance in the Shire of Otway (1984) by Neville Rosengren.Geological heritage sites, including sites of geomorphological interest and volcanic heritage sites, are under regular revision by the Geological Society of Australia, especially in the assessment of significance and values. Reference should be made to the most recent reports. See the Earth Science Heritage (external site) section of the Geological Society of Australia website for details of geological heritage reports, and a bibliography.Location:23-088047. Two kilometres west of Glenaire.Access:Track off Great Ocean Road 1.8 km north of Glenaire then steep walking track to beach.Ownership:Crown land (Otway National Park).Geology:At the base of the cliff, the Lower Cretaceous sandstones have yielded several fragments of dinosaur bone. To date a number of bone scraps and a limb bone resembling that of Hypsilophodon have been recovered. The fossils are concentrated in what appears to be a small infilled stream channel in the Cretaceous rocks.Significance:International. This is one of the few dinosaur bone sites in Australia and was discovered only in 1980. It is the subject of ongoing research and is particularly suitable for research due to the concentrated nature of the fossil deposit. Further recovery and identification of bone remains will contribute substantially to an understanding of the nature of the evolution of Australian fauna from the Cretaceous onwards. The fragments identified so far suggest they are from dinosaurs that are known elsewhere in the world only from rocks 20 to 40 million years older. Higher level platform remnant (arrowed) west of Dinosaur Cove. Cliff stack at Dinosaur Cove.Reference:Flannery, T.F. & Rich, T. (1982). "Dinosaur digging in Victoria." Aust. Nat. Hist. 20 (6): 195-198..Sites 23.1, 23.2, 23.3 and 23.4 Page top For information about DJPR please contact:

What they are doing is carrying out the final step in the search for, and the collection of, the fossils of dinosaurs and the other animals that lived with them in polar south-eastern Australia during the Early Cretaceous, between 105 and 130 million years ago.

This size is the cut off because one of the most significant components of the fossil assemblages are the remains of tiny mammals that rival living shrews in size. In addition, many of the pieces of dinosaur bones that are found are only slightly larger than the mammals.

Had there been a choice, where the initial dinosaur dig was carried out was the last place of the three locations, where major efforts have been made, that would have been chosen. Located in a small inlet from the Southern Ocean that was appropriately named Dinosaur Cove, the logistics of recovering fossils from there was so daunting that it was not the ideal place for only four experienced palaeontologists to train 68 volunteers, aged 7 to 77, in the rudiments of fossil collecting. But no other site of equal potential was known at that time. Although experienced myself, I had never been involved in cutting an underground adit in hard rock, or in anything else for that matter. Initially, except for a volunteer mine manager and his assistant, no one on the crew was experienced with the air powered jack hammers and drills provided by Atlas Copco.

Out of that small area excavated came 85 fossil bones, of which a number were clearly those of dinosaurs. That experience demonstrated that dinosaurs could be found at Dinosaur Cove if an effort was made. Having at the time nowhere else to go in Victoria to collect polar dinosaurs and the other animals that had once lived with them, a full decade would follow with excavations at Dinosaur Cove every year but one.

Fig. 10.(right) The late David Pickering. Dave was, like Lesley, a master preparator of the tiny mammal jaws that were found from time to time. He also organised and ran all butthe most recent excavation at the Eric the Red West site, the final one of the three principal Victorian dinosaur sites to be found. (Photograph by Lisa Nink.)

Initially, I was involved directly with all aspects of the Dinosaur Dreaming Project. But the situation has evolved to the point where my role is to identify the objective, provide the logistical support necessary to carry out the objective, and finally to either carry out the resulting scientific analysis of the discovered fossils myself or organise for someone else to do it. The cadre now do all the intermediate steps, from systematically searching for and documenting potential fossil sites of interest, to preparing the fossils for study, to carrying out the fossil excavations with all the organising of people and equipment that it entails. Finally, an annual report is produced by the group intended both for the people who carry out the digs and the Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming, a support group for the project.

Fig. 11.(left) Nicola Sanderson nee Barton holding the walnut sized rock she had just found containing a fossil mammal jaw, which had been my goal for the 23 years since joining the staff of Museums Victoria. Besides being an important discovery to me, because of her discovery, Nicole returned to Australia from her home in the UK a number of additional times. In doing so, she met her future husband, Dale. (Photograph by Lesley Kool.)

There is something very nice and simplistic about this book. Jamie and Tom can meet for the first time and be instant friends. Jamie's pocket dinosaur computer can come up with the right result from whatever input he gives it. Jamie can just have moved to the most idyllic cove-side lighthouse. And just like that the two friends can step into the world of the dinosaurs, meet a friendly critter with more smarts than at first appears, and have a great thrill avoiding tyrannosaurus rex.

There are many signs of the above the ordinary in its production too. Tiny little page-number side pictures show how we're in the age of the fossils or of the dinosaurs themselves. The cover is attractively embossed (still something that pleases me, anyway). The typography is cleverly beyond the norm as well, with size and font use brightening up the reading just as well as the rough and ready ink drawings do. 041b061a72