{"id":2832,"date":"2019-12-18T16:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T03:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/?p=2832"},"modified":"2025-08-14T16:12:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T04:12:48","slug":"snappy-discovery-leads-to-award-for-fossil-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/snappy-discovery-leads-to-award-for-fossil-hunter\/","title":{"rendered":"Snappy discovery leads to award for fossil-hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Leading Hawke\u2019s Bay conservationist Pete Shaw has been recognised by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand for his work on fossils in the Maungataniwha Native Forest. He has been awarded the Harold Wellman Prize for the discovery of important fossil material in New Zealand, including the largest mosasaur tooth on record here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Shaw is a trustee of the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust, which owns a property in the Maungataniwha Native Forest. The citation for his award says he has discovered fossils from numerous species of reptiles and outcrops rich in molluscan remains, while also expanding significantly \u201cin a geographic sense\u201d on the work of renowned New Zealand palaeontologist Joan Wiffen, forging routes into remote places that she was never able to visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trust\u2019s property at\u00a0Maungataniwha\u00a0is of\u00a0national importance geologically\u00a0as the site where Ms Wiffen first discovered evidence of land-dinosaur fossils in New Zealand. These\u00a0fossil remains were extracted\u00a0from cretaceous rock taken from the Mangahouanga Stream, which has the bulk of its catchment within this forest.\u00a0\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf any one place is the epicentre of New Zealand palaeontology, Maungataniwha is probably it,\u201d Mr Shaw said. \u201cMy interest in the fossil treasure-trove here was sparked by meeting the late Joan Wiffen, whose work truly was inspirational. We\u2019re privileged to be able to curate this astonishing area for the people of New Zealand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maungataniwha continues to reveal a trove of fossilised riches; in June 2014 walkers stumbled across the fossil of an unusually large ammonite, a squid-like animal that lived in the sea during the time of the dinosaurs. It was here that Mr Shaw discovered the fossilised mosasaur jaw in March 2015.\u00a0 He and DOC biodiversity ranger Helen Jonas were conducting a search for whio (Blue duck) up a small stream when Mr Shaw spotted a rock with a lump of bone in it. Ms Jonas was keen to see if the bone extended through the rock and Mr Shaw jumped into a nearby pool to fetch a branch with which to lever the rock loose.\u00a0 While in the pool he felt something rough and lifted out another rock containing the fossilised jaw fragment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust was established in 2006 to provide direction and funding for the restoration of threatened species of fauna and flora, and to restore the ngahere mauri (forest lifeforce) in native forests within the Central North Island. It runs eight main regeneration and restoration projects, involving native New Zealand flora and fauna, on three properties in the central North Island. It also owns a property in the South Island\u2019s Fiordland National Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAPTION: Mr Shaw with his prize – and the tooth in question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leading Hawke\u2019s Bay conservationist Pete Shaw has been recognised by the Geoscience Society of New Zealand for his work on fossils in the Maungataniwha Native Forest. He has been awarded the Harold Wellman Prize for the discovery of important fossil material in New Zealand, including the largest mosasaur tooth on record here. Mr Shaw is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}