Yesterday a film crew from Windfall Films spent the afternoon in Poole Harbour filming some experimental ichnology. Ichnology is the study of trace fossils and is something that Bournemouth has an international reputation for. The production company are working on a documentary for Nova and are currently following our research team as they bring forward new research at White Sands National Park. As part of this they filmed a sequence yesterday involving the use of primitive transport technology. Think of a wheel-less wheel barrow used to transport butchered mammoths and giant ground sloth remains and you have the idea. We were experimenting with different designs and trying to work out what the trace fossil record looks like for each.
The Bournemouth team consisted of Hannah Larsen a PhD student who braved the bitter cold to go shoe less on the mudflats and a first year undergraduate student Gary Packwood who volunteered to help. It was a nice example of fusion in action.