Mike Cleeland has given up the day job but he’s not hanging up the rock hammer any time soon.
By Ed Thexton
FOR twelve years the South Gippsland Conservation Society has thrown every manner of dinosaur enthusiast at Mike Cleeland and his thirst for ancient fossils is unquenched.
How do you find obscure traces of dinosaur presence from 125 million years ago? The answer - persistence and consistency, the hallmarks of Mike’s endeavours. Days, months, years and decades are needed to succeed at the fossil game. Mike has acknowledged that when he started he was just like the rest of us and barely able to see the fossil for the rock. He is going out of the conservation society at the peak of his game.
Luckily for Mike, he grew up at Cape Woolamai so climate is a mere triviality. As an inheritor of Bass Strait’s frigid south-westerly gales, belting horizontal rain and crashing waves, he was born for the life on a rock platform. Professor Pat Rich recounted that years ago Mike took one look at their underground digging for fossils at the Otways Dinosaur Cove and took off for the rock platforms, never to return.
FOR twelve years the South Gippsland Conservation Society has thrown every manner of dinosaur enthusiast at Mike Cleeland and his thirst for ancient fossils is unquenched.
How do you find obscure traces of dinosaur presence from 125 million years ago? The answer - persistence and consistency, the hallmarks of Mike’s endeavours. Days, months, years and decades are needed to succeed at the fossil game. Mike has acknowledged that when he started he was just like the rest of us and barely able to see the fossil for the rock. He is going out of the conservation society at the peak of his game.
Luckily for Mike, he grew up at Cape Woolamai so climate is a mere triviality. As an inheritor of Bass Strait’s frigid south-westerly gales, belting horizontal rain and crashing waves, he was born for the life on a rock platform. Professor Pat Rich recounted that years ago Mike took one look at their underground digging for fossils at the Otways Dinosaur Cove and took off for the rock platforms, never to return.
People can change and now he’s going subterranean. Sick of the heat, sick of the cold, the rain and sand between his toes, Mike is now a signed up member of the crack Wonthaggi Coal Mine volunteer underground mine tour leaders’ team.
Why underground? It can’t just be to get out of the weather. After all he could have just brought long pants. Or is it all that rock? Not content with perpetually looking down, Mike’s going 360, he wants, at last, to look up for fossil traces. All that lovely rock, a fossil lover’s immersive experience. He knows something, I’m sure. Hope he is not disappointed.
So, if you want to see Mike, get a head torch and follow him into the gloom. As usual Mike will be ever vigilant. He never lost anyone on the rock platform in 12 years, so he is hardly likely to lose anyone in the tunnels. But he may find dinosaur traces. What’s the bet old habits die hard, and Mike has the kids picking through those rocks.
Why underground? It can’t just be to get out of the weather. After all he could have just brought long pants. Or is it all that rock? Not content with perpetually looking down, Mike’s going 360, he wants, at last, to look up for fossil traces. All that lovely rock, a fossil lover’s immersive experience. He knows something, I’m sure. Hope he is not disappointed.
So, if you want to see Mike, get a head torch and follow him into the gloom. As usual Mike will be ever vigilant. He never lost anyone on the rock platform in 12 years, so he is hardly likely to lose anyone in the tunnels. But he may find dinosaur traces. What’s the bet old habits die hard, and Mike has the kids picking through those rocks.
The importance of sticking at it is behind so many endeavours in conservation. At the conservation society we know a thing or two about this as we prepare to celebrate our 50th anniversary next year. Just one person sticking at it is often the difference between a promising idea succeeding or not. Never underestimate your importance to a cause, as Mike’s adventures in palaeontology attest.
The conservation society has played its part in enabling Mike to stay local, thereby helping to bring to light and fostering the era of polar dinosaur discovery at Inverloch. Twelve years of Mike, group after group, has cultured a foundation of wonder. People’s fascination with dinosaurs has been a portal into the natural world. Although focused on the fossils down at the Caves Beach, it would be a rare bird who could overlook the dramatic and incredible beauty of the setting. Here we have a continuum that stretches back 125 million years. Wonder at that.
The conservation society has played its part in enabling Mike to stay local, thereby helping to bring to light and fostering the era of polar dinosaur discovery at Inverloch. Twelve years of Mike, group after group, has cultured a foundation of wonder. People’s fascination with dinosaurs has been a portal into the natural world. Although focused on the fossils down at the Caves Beach, it would be a rare bird who could overlook the dramatic and incredible beauty of the setting. Here we have a continuum that stretches back 125 million years. Wonder at that.
Mike Cleeland, centre, with Steve Broady and Melissa Lowery
And then along comes Melissa Lowery. (The woman with the x-ray eyes, Bass Coast Post, February 22, 2024) There can’t be a better reward for effort than to have your protégé emerge with advanced capabilities. For your physical, mental, and emotional investment to go on in such a way is priceless. Professor Tom Rich wrote in a recent article that after a lifetime of international palaeontology he knew of only one other person who could spot a fossil as well as Melissa.
Our rock platforms have revealed the incredible; the discoveries never stop. Driving home the other day, listening to the ABC Science Show, I heard Tim Flannery say the finding of some of the world’s oldest mammal fossils at Inverloch was helping to rewrite the evolutionary history of the world. That Australia, just as it has been for birds, is the evolutionary cradle of mammals. I nearly drove off the road.
Mike Cleeland was the education officer at the Bunurong Centre for 12 years. Ed Thexton is president of the South Gippsland Conservation Society. This is an edited version of his speech at Mike’s farewell.
Our rock platforms have revealed the incredible; the discoveries never stop. Driving home the other day, listening to the ABC Science Show, I heard Tim Flannery say the finding of some of the world’s oldest mammal fossils at Inverloch was helping to rewrite the evolutionary history of the world. That Australia, just as it has been for birds, is the evolutionary cradle of mammals. I nearly drove off the road.
Mike Cleeland was the education officer at the Bunurong Centre for 12 years. Ed Thexton is president of the South Gippsland Conservation Society. This is an edited version of his speech at Mike’s farewell.