Sea Dragons of Avalon

Do you associate sea dragons with Street in Somerset? It seems you should - click here to view the details. The Sea Dragons of Avalon seminar will be held at the modern Strode Theatre in Street, on the edge of the marshes forming the Somerset Levels, opposite King Arthur’s legendary Isle of Avalon on July 31st 2009. It will offer a fresh look at the Street area, one of the classic source localities for marine reptiles during the 19^th century alongside Lyme Regis. The seminar will be set in the wider context of the latest Triassic and early Jurassic faunal turnovers, and topics will include assessment of the Triassic-Jurassic marine reptile fauna together with contemporary changes in land reptiles, marine fishes and marine invertebrates. This is highly topical in light of interest in the end-Triassic mass extinction and recent resurvey of the Street area by the British Geological Survey. New vertebrate finds, together with posters by workers and institutions in the south-west of England, will be on display and we plan to visit the Alfred Gillett Collection of local fossil reptiles by kind courtesy of the archives of the Alfred Gillett Trust.