Isle of Wight

[Mike Taylor <mike@tecc.co.uk>]

Thanks to Patricia Kane-Vanni, Avital Strauss and Stuart Pond, all of
whom responded to my recent post asking where to go on the Isle of
Wight.  I said I'd summarise responses to the list, so here they are.

There are two main attractions for the non-specialist: the Geology
Museum at Sandown and the Dinosaur Farm museum.

I went to the Geology Museum first.  It's above the library on the
High Street of Sandown, but I'm afraid it was rather sad when I was
there (the only visitor) and it will be sadder still by the time you
read this, as all its good stuff is in the process of moving to the
new, dedicated Dinosaur Isle museum nearby.  So I timed my visit very
badly -- most of the good stuff was gone or at least taken out of the
display cases.  Weirdly, there was a whacking great femur just lying
on the floor -- unlabelled, unprotected, unidentified.  The only
museum staff while I was there was the lady who runs the shop, but she
didn't know what it was.

So anyone who's planning to see the IoW Geology Museum should go NOW
while they still have one :-)  Or, probably better, wait a week or
two, and go to the new dinosaur museum instead.

After that I went to Dinosaur Farm Museum, which is near Brighstone on
the A3055 (variously known as the Military Road, and as the Southern
Coastal Road).  You can call them on +44 1983 740401.  This was very
much more alive: it's basically a smallish museum combined with a live
prep lab, where you're encouraged into asking the workers questions
(which must drive them nuts, but hey :-)

Their main project is a small brachiosaurid (and by small, I mean
``only fifty feet long'' :-) which was found on the farm a few years
back.  To contribute towards funding the huge job of preparing this
beast, they decided to open the process up for the public, charging
two quid a head to get in.  For that, you get to look at two room of
exhibits: largely Iguanodon material, which predominates on the IoW;
plus some Neovenator, which is hot news there; and of course the
various bits and pieces of their brachiosaur.

Because most of the brachiosaur material is in prep, it's not really
identifiable to such a layman as myself.  In particular, there's the
tragic story of a scapula which was found in very good condition but
then badly jacketed, so when they removed the jacket, it was in
literally thousands of tiny pieces, 1cm cubes, which one poor guy has
been working on for two years now, and thinks he's about half way
through restoring.  The most obviously impressive brach material is a
cast of a complete (except for the toes) forelimb, which they have
completely prepped and taken away.  The forelimb stands seemingly
unsupported in the middle of the room.  It's very odd.  But more about
that in a separate message.

(Very much BTW., the DF museum had a ``Jurassic Park 3 field guide''
poster up on the wall, and one of the illustrated genera was
Ceratosaurus -- so I guess that about wraps up the Mystery Theropod
controversy.  It's meant to be Ceratosaurus.)

In addition to the Geology Museum and Dinosaur Farm there are various
other things you can do, primarily fossil hunting trips; but I was
short on time and felt I'd be out of my depth with that kind of thing.
(To be honest, I sometimes have trouble seeing a fossil even if it's
prepped and labelled, so my chances of finding anything myself are
down in the 1e-99's :-)

Anyway, hope that was either helpful or useful for someone.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor - <mike@miketaylor.org.uk> - www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Interaardvark: say it with ant-eaters" -- Dave James.