Our Cretaceous Seas: How the Monsters Lived & Died

Name: Our Cretaceous Seas: How the Monsters Lived & Died
Start: 2025-03-19T19:00:00+10:30
Location: Adelaide Planetarium

Schedule

Wed, 19 Mar, 2025 at 07:00 pm

UTC+10:30

Location

Adelaide Planetarium | Adelaide, SA

Tom Hurley
Field Geology Club of
South Australia
Tom Hurley was born and raised in Adelaide. His inquiring mind and passionate nature favoured birds, fishing, nature but above all, rocks. Ore and their associated gange minerals, crystals, agates, and fossils and above all of these, “why”.
These interests were followed into a life of museum collecting, a road less travelled. Geological holidays and even a geological honeymoon with long-time partner Sharon. Tom and Sharon both have large dinosaur aged fish named after them and Tom has fossil sea lice as well After 5 years underground in the mine at Roxby downs we met “Dinosaur” Dick Suter, curator of the stone house museum in Boulia, far west Queensland.
Then after four years of earning his trust, Dick finally took us out in the field to collect marine reptiles. Long necked Loch Ness monster like plesiosaurs, dolphin shaped ichthyosaurs, turtles, fish and others and both of our worlds never looked back. He brought the basics and most importantly the respect and trust of the cattle station owners and managers. We brought field geology skills and mechanised searching and digging. We finally became skilled in finding, digging, and preparing the fossils of the Cretaceous inland seas.
The talk is overview of 20 plus years of collecting and comparisons of the Aptian (opal fields) fossils of 115 million years and the Albian seas of 100 million years. The environment, the faunas, geology, and a conclusion on how Australia fits into the world at the time.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC PLANETARIUM SESSION.
You must be a member of the Supernovas to attend
($5.00 per person entry fee). However, special public attendance requests will be considered for this session. Please email your attendance requests to Paul Curnow at: [email protected]