Lesley Kool: "The excitement of discovery has never waned."
By Catherine Watson
MOST people would call it work. Lesley Kool calls it her wonderful adventure. Time stops when she’s in her lab. She shuts the door, puts on headphones, listens to a podcast or audiobook, and works on fossils. That’s all there is.
Lesley has been central to the Dinosaur Dreaming digs along Bass Coast for decades. I’d long wanted to interview her but was intimidated by her reputation. She’d soon realise I don’t know a T-rex from a Brontosaurus. I needn’t have worried. When I called, she said: “Come on over.”
MOST people would call it work. Lesley Kool calls it her wonderful adventure. Time stops when she’s in her lab. She shuts the door, puts on headphones, listens to a podcast or audiobook, and works on fossils. That’s all there is.
Lesley has been central to the Dinosaur Dreaming digs along Bass Coast for decades. I’d long wanted to interview her but was intimidated by her reputation. She’d soon realise I don’t know a T-rex from a Brontosaurus. I needn’t have worried. When I called, she said: “Come on over.”
Far from the disapproving academic I expected, she’s an amateur in the best sense, having stumbled into dinosaurs by accident and found her calling.
“It’s been the greatest adventure,” she says of her 40-plus years in palaeontology. “I’ve been very lucky.”
Her journey began in 1984, when the Friends of the Melbourne Museum approached Dr Tom Rich, the museum’s senior curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology. He was excavating fossils on the Otways coast and agreed, reluctantly, to take volunteers. Lesley was one of them.
“I spent two weeks at Dinosaur Cove and I was completely hooked. We came back with about 300 bones and there was no one to prepare them. I volunteered.”
She had no formal training. There isn’t any. “You learn by doing it and talking to others. I got five minutes’ training on how to hold the engraving tool and what to do, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
“It’s been the greatest adventure,” she says of her 40-plus years in palaeontology. “I’ve been very lucky.”
Her journey began in 1984, when the Friends of the Melbourne Museum approached Dr Tom Rich, the museum’s senior curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology. He was excavating fossils on the Otways coast and agreed, reluctantly, to take volunteers. Lesley was one of them.
“I spent two weeks at Dinosaur Cove and I was completely hooked. We came back with about 300 bones and there was no one to prepare them. I volunteered.”
She had no formal training. There isn’t any. “You learn by doing it and talking to others. I got five minutes’ training on how to hold the engraving tool and what to do, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
That trusty electric engraver is still in use 42 years later.
Lesley’s talent and dedication were soon obvious and she became a key part of Monash University’s palaeontology team, working as a research assistant to Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich for 20 years. When funding ran out in 2006, she continued working from home without pay.
Early in her career, she joined a dig at Eagles Nest and soon realised how rich the rocks out-cropping along the Bass Coast were in fossils. She was living in the Dandenong Ranges but used to come down at weekends and fossick along the coast near Inverloch. Her husband Gerry or colleagues would sometimes join her. After Gerry retired, they moved to Bass Coast full time in 2002. “I’ve never regretted it. It’s beautiful, it’s close to the fossils, and we’ve made so many friends.”
Dinosaur Dreaming, a project of Monash University and Museums Victoria focussing on Cretaceous fossil sites near Inverloch, has been running since the mid `90s.
What makes the project unique is the longevity of the core team. Apart from Lesley, they include Dr Tom Rich and his wife Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich, both world-renowned palaeontologists, and Mike Cleeland (‘Mr Dinosaur’), a long-time education officer at the Bunurong Environment Centre.
Some of the original volunteers remain, joined for the Dinosaur Dreaming big dig each February by new university students seeking hands-on experience and other volunteers drawn by the thrill of discovery.
Early in her career, she joined a dig at Eagles Nest and soon realised how rich the rocks out-cropping along the Bass Coast were in fossils. She was living in the Dandenong Ranges but used to come down at weekends and fossick along the coast near Inverloch. Her husband Gerry or colleagues would sometimes join her. After Gerry retired, they moved to Bass Coast full time in 2002. “I’ve never regretted it. It’s beautiful, it’s close to the fossils, and we’ve made so many friends.”
Dinosaur Dreaming, a project of Monash University and Museums Victoria focussing on Cretaceous fossil sites near Inverloch, has been running since the mid `90s.
What makes the project unique is the longevity of the core team. Apart from Lesley, they include Dr Tom Rich and his wife Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich, both world-renowned palaeontologists, and Mike Cleeland (‘Mr Dinosaur’), a long-time education officer at the Bunurong Environment Centre.
Some of the original volunteers remain, joined for the Dinosaur Dreaming big dig each February by new university students seeking hands-on experience and other volunteers drawn by the thrill of discovery.
Dinosaur hunters, Eagles Nest, Steve Broady, left, Mike Cleeland and Melissa Lowery
Perhaps most remarkable is Melissa Lowery, a local team member with an uncanny ability to spot fossils who has become a vital part of the team since she accompanied Mike on a dig in 2017. Since then she’s discovered many hundreds of bones and some 300 dinosaur footprints in the rocks.
Lesley shows me one of Melissa’s recent finds. “Most people would not see that [outlined in red below], particularly when it's covered with Galeolaria worm tubes. I very gently tapped it with a hammer and exposed the rest of it. And this is actually a turtle scapula.”
Lesley shows me one of Melissa’s recent finds. “Most people would not see that [outlined in red below], particularly when it's covered with Galeolaria worm tubes. I very gently tapped it with a hammer and exposed the rest of it. And this is actually a turtle scapula.”
There are some 37 fossil localities along Bass Coast, from Inverloch to San Remo back beach. Sites such as Twin Reefs, Shack Bay, and Flat Rocks have all yielded rich finds over the years including the fossilised remains of dinosaurs, mammals, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, turtles and fish.
Recently, the team has concentrated on Twin Reefs where this year they found a tiny ornithopod dinosaur jaw, just two centimetres long, likely from a hatchling. The jaw had five perfectly preserved teeth, giving clues about the timing of hatching and the local environment. “The excitement of discovery has never waned,” Lesley says.
Tom specialises in Mesozoic mammals so there was great excitement in 1997 when a volunteer found a tiny jaw fragment near Flat Rocks. Under the microscope, Lesley saw a tooth with two roots. Dinosaurs have one.
Recently, the team has concentrated on Twin Reefs where this year they found a tiny ornithopod dinosaur jaw, just two centimetres long, likely from a hatchling. The jaw had five perfectly preserved teeth, giving clues about the timing of hatching and the local environment. “The excitement of discovery has never waned,” Lesley says.
Tom specialises in Mesozoic mammals so there was great excitement in 1997 when a volunteer found a tiny jaw fragment near Flat Rocks. Under the microscope, Lesley saw a tooth with two roots. Dinosaurs have one.
“That one tooth changed everything,” she says. Volunteers were retrained to break rock down to sugar-cube size instead of walnut size. Since then, nearly 60 mammal jaws have been found, including evidence of the world’s smallest and oldest monotreme. Inverloch remains the only Australian site where multituberculate mammals have been found.
Coastal erosion is a mixed blessing. It can wash away something important but it’s also uncovering new fossils all the time. That's where Mike and his prospecting team are so important, because they go out all year checking sites.
In 1990 he discovered part of a previously unknown extinct amphibian near San Remo in 1990. Tom and Pat Rich named it Koolasuchus cleelandi in recognition of Lesley and Mike’s work. In 2022, it became Victoria’s State Fossil Emblem. In 2023, Lesley received an Order of Australia Medal for her service to palaeontology.
“I've been blessed over the years," she says. "It’s really been so much fun.”
Coastal erosion is a mixed blessing. It can wash away something important but it’s also uncovering new fossils all the time. That's where Mike and his prospecting team are so important, because they go out all year checking sites.
In 1990 he discovered part of a previously unknown extinct amphibian near San Remo in 1990. Tom and Pat Rich named it Koolasuchus cleelandi in recognition of Lesley and Mike’s work. In 2022, it became Victoria’s State Fossil Emblem. In 2023, Lesley received an Order of Australia Medal for her service to palaeontology.
“I've been blessed over the years," she says. "It’s really been so much fun.”
Lesley Kool and Mike Cleeland hold a life-size banner of Koolasuchus cleelandi at the Conference on Australasian Vertebrate Evolution, Palaeontology & Systematics, Melbourne Museum, 2023.
Fieldwork for the big digs is physically demanding. Equipment and rocks must be lugged up and down the cliffs. As the core crew ages, younger recruits provide vital muscle power. Sites are only accessible a few hours each side of low tide. Lesley no longer does fieldwork because of a foot injury. She waits back at the “Dig House” in Cape Paterson for the team to return with the day’s haul. This summer, they collected just over 300 bones.
Dinosaur Dreaming dig, Twin Reefs, March 2024. The legendary palaentologist Dr Tom Rich is in the group on the upper right.
The big dig is an exciting, exhilarating time for everyone. And when it finishes, the real work starts for Lesley and her small team of volunteer preparators begins.
“It’s our job to try and piece it all together, which can be a real jigsaw puzzle,” she says.
The fossils will ultimately go into the vertebrate palaeontology collection of the Melbourne Museum where they will be available for researchers, but first they must be prepared.
“It’s our job to try and piece it all together, which can be a real jigsaw puzzle,” she says.
The fossils will ultimately go into the vertebrate palaeontology collection of the Melbourne Museum where they will be available for researchers, but first they must be prepared.
Preparation involves separating fossils from the surrounding rock. Sandstone can't be dissolved in acid, it has to be removed mechanically. Lesley still uses the electric engraver that was given to her by the Melbourne Museum on her first day in 1984. These days she also has a pneumatic tool called an air scribe. More often than not, she uses a tungsten carbide rod under the microscope the Monash team gave her when she left. It's a slow process, just one sand grain at a time.
“You have to have a lot of patience and good hand-eye co-ordination because you need to be able to know where your hands are at all times.
“You have to have a lot of patience and good hand-eye co-ordination because you need to be able to know where your hands are at all times.
Her work is a sanctuary, she agrees. She shuts the door of her lab, her dog Bella dozing at her feet, and tunes out the world. Immersed in the world of deep time, her own sense of time stops.
“Something as fragile as a skull, or a dinosaur jaw with teeth, can take weeks or even months to prepare. But it's very satisfying, particularly to get something out that you know is of scientific importance like Tom's mammals and a couple of the bones that Melissa has found.”
“I’ve never lost the thrill of discovery. It's what really makes this so exciting."
At 75, she has no plans to stop. “As long as I can see I want to continue. It's been a big adventure and I'm hoping it will continue for a bit longer.”
“Something as fragile as a skull, or a dinosaur jaw with teeth, can take weeks or even months to prepare. But it's very satisfying, particularly to get something out that you know is of scientific importance like Tom's mammals and a couple of the bones that Melissa has found.”
“I’ve never lost the thrill of discovery. It's what really makes this so exciting."
At 75, she has no plans to stop. “As long as I can see I want to continue. It's been a big adventure and I'm hoping it will continue for a bit longer.”
