The 22-year-old University of Otago geology student has uncovered many fossilised artefacts in recent years, the range including brachiopods, birds and bone fragments from prehistoric dolphins and whales.
But high on his wish list is to uncover dinosaur, mammoth and other prehistoric bones.
So, he is off to the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Canada, next month, where its fossil preparation laboratory is dedicated to turning dinosaur and mammoth bones into museum-quality exhibits.
He will spend four months volunteering in the laboratory, while doing a course on vertebrate palaeontology at the university.
‘‘It’s pretty much a wish fulfilment.
‘‘I guess the thing is, I will get to work with dinosaurs and mammoths and other prehistoric animals that we don’t have here in New Zealand.
‘‘That’s not to say that what we have in New Zealand isn’t unique, but it often isn’t the more well-known, more fantastical massive dinosaurs and stuff.’’
It was something that he had wanted to do since kindergarten, he said.
‘‘And now I’ve got this once-in-a-lifetime chance to fulfil my wish.’’
Despite his mission to uncover fossils, it was only relatively recently that he actually found his first.
It was during a lunch break on a geology field trip a few years ago.
‘‘We were out at a limestone quarry and we were doing other geology stuff, but we had about an hour during our lunch to go and look for fossils.
‘‘At the quarry, there was lots of massive piles of limestone rubble just kind of lying there, and I was just going around kind of breaking some open with a hammer and seeing what was inside.
‘‘I hit one and found this lovely, completely intact seashell called a Lentipecten.
A relative of scallops, he said it was a lovely specimen.
‘‘I was so excited that I insisted on carrying it all the way back with me — it was quite special for me to find because it was my first fossil.’’
As part of his geology coursework at Otago, he has gone on to discover and prepare other fossils, donating the best specimens to Otago’s Geology Museum.
Discovering a fossil that had not been seen or touched for millions of years was part of the allure, he said.
‘‘I mean, every time you crack open a rock like that, you don’t necessarily know what you’re going to see.
‘‘It’s a bit like a birthday present or a Christmas present — you never know what you’re going to find.’’
