42 DECEMBER 2020 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Industry Announcements International Society of Explosives Engineers (ISEE) is now accepting entries for their annual photo contest. The categories are: Blasters and Drillers at Work Construction Blasting Quarrying and Mining Demolition Blasting Specialty Blasting You may enter an individual picture or a series of up to five pictures. Winners will be selected for each category and the deadline is December 30, 2020. Photos will be uploaded to the ISEE website and the ISEE Facebook page so everyone can vote. The winner will be announced in early 2021. To learn more, click here in our online issue. Service Wire Phoenix has been selected as the Arizona Manufacturers Council 2020 Small Manufacturer of the Year. This win for the entire Service Wire Team symbolizes the company’s strong commitment to its processes and procedures leading to success. VACUWORXhas been named the 2020 Manufacturer of the Year by the Oklahoma district of the U.S. Small Business Administration as part of National Small Business Week. VACUWORX has been engineering a safer way to handle pipe for the gas and oil sector for over 20 years. TrueLook has expanded its operations with a new office located in the Innovation Quarter of Winston Salem, North Carolina. TrueLook is a construction camera company, providing live jobsite viewing, project time-lapsing, and Intelligent Security with every camera. Most Complete Opalized Dinosaur Discovered in Australia Adapted from Information by the University of New England and the Australian Opal Centre Scientists discovered some unique fossils from an underground opal mine near Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia, including remains from a herd of dinosaurs, a new dinosaur species, and the world's most complete opalized dinosaur. Dr. Phil Bell, lead researcher from the University of New England in Armidale, was stunned by the number of bones found. “We initially assumed it was a single skeleton, but when I started looking at some of the bones, I realized that we had four scapulae (shoulder blades) all from different sized animals.” This is the first dinosaur herd to be discovered in Australia. The bones were found in the 1980s by opal miner Robert Foster at the Sheepyard Opal Field, near Lightning Ridge. Scientists from the Australian Museum in Sydney, helped excavate the fossils, but the bones were not studied until they were donated to the Australian Opal Centre by Robert's children, Gregory and Joanne Foster, in 2015. The new dinosaur is called Fostoria (named for Foster) dhimbangunmal (pronounced dim-baan goon-mal), which means sheepyard in the local language. “There are about 60 opalized bones from one adult dinosaur, including part of the braincase, and bones from at least another three animals,” said Dr. Bell. Altogether, parts of four Fostoria skeletons were unearthed, ranging from small juveniles, to larger animals which may have been about 16 feet in length, suggesting they were part of a small herd or family. Jenni Brammall, paleontologist and special projects officer of the Australian Opal Centre said, “Fostoria has given us the most complete opalized dinosaur skeleton in the world. Partial skeletons of extinct swimming reptiles have been found at other Australian opal fields, but for opalized dinosaurs, we generally have only a single bone or tooth or in rare instances, a few bones. To recover dozens of bones from the one skeleton is a first.” The discovery comes on the heels of a new small plant-eating dinosaur also discovered near Lightning Ridge, called Weewarrasaurus pobeni, which was named by Dr. Bell and colleagues. “The rate of discovery is astounding. On average, there’s at least one new dinosaur discovered around the world every week,” he stated. “With more paleontologists and scientists looking further afield than ever before, it’s an exciting time for dinosaur lovers everywhere, especially in Australia.” A toe bone of Fostoria preserved in opal. Photo by Robert A. Smith courtesy of Australian Opal Centre. MIN
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