The Jurassic Coast Trust have announced the winner of our recent ‘Big Five Fossils’ competition – Julie Brinkley, an NHS nurse from London who is a passionate fossil lover and frequent visitor to the Jurassic Coast.
Julie, who sports a pair of ammonite tattoos on her wrists, collected her prize this week from JCT headquarters in Bridport, and was given a personal explanation of the science behind it by the Trust’s Conservation Officer Chris Reedman. The prize was an impressive 45cm-long, 190 million year-old ‘Jurassic Seabed Assembly’, featuring a stunning array of ammonites, belemnites and other notable Jurassic Period marine species. It was collected by local collector David Sole, who kindly donated it to the Trust for the competition, and prepared by local fossil expert Lizzie Hingley.
The competition is part of the Trust’s Jurassic Coast Collection project, which recently published its Year 1 Report, cataloguing significant fossils specimens from across the World Heritage Site that are currently held in local and national museums, as well as in private and academic collections. Over 1,000 people entered the competition, voting for their favourite Jurassic Coast species across five different categories. The winners included the iconic ichthyosaur and ammonite.
Chris said of the competition, “We were delighted to present Julie with her prize. She was absolutely blown away with it and it will take pride of place in her home. Julie has been visiting the Jurassic Coast since she was six years-old and has a lifelong passion for fossils, and we’re so happy that we were able to pass this on to her.”
Find out more and read the full report at: jurassiccoast.link/jcc-report