Year 8 student Hayden Power, from the San Remo Campus of Bass Coast College, recently discovered a 126-million-year-old fossil embedded in rock at a beach in San Remo.
Year 8 students, led by local palaeontologist Mike Cleeland, visited geologically significant areas of coastline as a part of their science studies.
The students were looking at evidence of volcanic activity and rock types when the discovery was made.
Mike had encouraged students to look for signs of fossils in nearby rocks as this area is known to harbor many fossils.
Hayden noticed that the rock he had overturned resembled the description of fossilised bone Mike had given, rushing the rock to Mike to have his inkling confirmed.
The fossil has been identified by palaeontologists in the Department of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Museums Victoria as a vertebra, most likely from Koolasuchus cleelandi.
Koolasuchus was first discovered in Bass Coast by Mike Cleeland in 1990 and Koolasuchus cleelandi was named the Victoria’s State Fossil Emblem in 2022.
“I was surprised that I actually found a dinosaur bone, it’s really exciting because it’s so rare,” Hayden said.
Hayden received a certificate of discovery, verifying his find, which has now “been included in the collection of fossil bones from the area and will be used in future research”.
He was also given a quick fact sheet from Museums Victoria about the dinosaur.
The Koolasuchus cleelandi lived during the Cretaceous Period, and resembled “something between a huge newt and a crocodile”, and was about the size of a car.
“Inside a head the size of a dustbin lid were dozens of ridged fangs for piercing prey and two-inch tusks growing from the roof of its mouth,” the museum said.
It was adapted to living in the rushing rivers and its fossils are only found at a few beaches and coves in South Gippsland.
Hayden’s great discovery is not the first time the school has struck gold in the fossil field.
In fact, Bass Coast College has a long running history of exciting fossil finds.
It is almost eight years to the day that WSC/BCC students made a significant find, with two students breaking open a rock found at Inverloch to discover a 115-million-year-old claw from an Ornithopod.