Moa footprints in the public eye

CONSERVATION will be on display at Otago Museum as visitors are offered a peek into the protection of moa footprints.

From November 20, the public can see staff work on the six prints extracted in a major operation from the Kyeburn River in May.

Inside the People of the World Gallery, a small window will be installed with views into the room where they will be temporarily stored.

The humidity will be gradually decreased to dry the footprints.

Museum conservation manager Nyssa Mildwaters said it would keep monitoring the process, because it had not really been done before.

‘‘We need to do that evenly so the sides don’t dry out and crack and we’ll get fans in for even drying.’’

Since May, the blocks had been wrapped and stored.

‘‘They each took their own individual little trip up to the hospital to get scanned so we’ve got a good record of them before they get dried.’’

They had not yet been weighed, but appeared quite ‘‘weighty’’.

‘‘When we did the CT scanning and put two in the back of the car, the car dipped quite considerably and it did take about three people to carry them.’’

Once dried they would be put in ‘‘millimetreperfect’’ custom containers.

The work would perhaps not be the most visually dynamic, but the museum understood the public were keen to see them regardless.

It would later decide whether they would go on display.

Museum natural science curator Emma Burns said the samples could reveal how the moa walked, how much they weighed and how big they were.

A broad age estimate of ‘‘up to a million years’’ was based on the known formations in the area.

Staff would return to the site and collect lignite samples to narrow the time window using carbon dating and/or pollen analysis.

As they were they only collected moa footprints in the South Island, they could be invaluable in learning about the species.

‘‘There’s still heaps we don’t know about moa.’’