18TH OF SEPTEMBER at 7pm. Venue still to be finalised.

TWO DECADES OF FOSSIL DISCOVERY AT ST. BATHANS.

For more than two decades a team of Palaeontologists from New Zealand and Australia have worked at fossil sites in the Maniototo investigating what this place was like in the Miocene 20 million years ago. The layer in which the fossils are found derives from sediments deposited in a gigantic shallow, freshwater lake, that extended across present day Central Otago from Bannockburn and the Nevis Valley in the west; to Naseby in the east; and from the Waitaki Valley in the north to Ranfurly in the south. The fauna consists of a variety of vertebrates, including fish, a crocodilian, a rhynchocephalian (a relative of tuatara), geckos, skinks, a primitive mammal, several species of bats, and at least 40 species of birds, especially waterbirds. In this talk we will discuss how modern-day Central Otago differed from that in the past and how the animals and plants we see today differ from those 20 million years ago.

Paul Scofield is the Curator of Natural History at Canterbury Museum and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at the University of Canterbury. With over 30 years of experience in conservation and avian palaeobiology, his work spans New Zealand and the Sub-Antarctic  but he has also worked in the Arctic, central Pacific and Caribbean. Paul is particularly fascinated by New Zealand pre-history. He has described more than 30 fossil species, co-authored significant works on the biology of moa, and authored two best-selling books on identifying New Zealand’s birds.