U. OF C. PALEONTOLOGIST AND CREW DIG IN AGAIN
Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.; Aug 10, 2000
Lisa B Song, Tribune Staff Writer
Copyright 2000 by the Chicago Tribune

Breaking News.

Nigersaurus is object of African expedition

She's got a curvy, elongated neck and a bizarre jaw teeming with 600 plant-grinding teeth. But there's tons more to the 90 million- year-old dinosaur fossil dubbed Nigersaurus.

in a few days, renowned University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno will be returning to familiar hunting grounds in Africa's Sahara Desert, 8,500 miles away, on a four-month expedition to excavate more of Nigersaurus' skeleton.

"Nigersaurus will have a face you will never forget," Sereno said at a news conference in Chicago today.

It was three years ago, on another dinosaur dig in Niger, that he first discovered parts of Nigersaurus. What would look like ordinary sheet rock to most people turned out to be a 30-pound shoulder blade. A small piece of the dinosaur's jaw also was recovered.

"This time we know where the skeleton is ... and we are going to pursue her with a vengeance," said Sereno, who buried other bones belonging to Nigersaurus, vowing to return for them.

Also on the agenda, Sereno hopes to uncover more of a 20-foot, winged reptile discovered on a previous dig.

"Africa is a hotbed for dinosaur explorers, but not the kinds of dinosaurs we learned about as kids, such as Tyrannosaurus Rex," Sereno said. "These dinosaurs were not native to Africa; the dinosaurs that evolved in Africa evolved in isolation."

Nigersaurus is not just another important dinosaur discovery. She may be related to plant changes millions of years ago, Sereno said.

"We see a dental adaptation never seen before in long-necked dinosaurs," he said. "She's got all these amazing teeth and the most eccentric jaw found in a decade."

Although Sereno said he can't yet render Nigersaurus' exact appearance, he estimates she was 45-feet long with a back towering 15 1/2 feet high. The creature may have weighed up to 20 tons, he said.

Sereno said the expedition would be different from others he's led in that it would attempt to piece together the entire ecosystem that existed in the area 90 million years ago. One of the team's goals is to find the bones of smaller animals that inhabited the area.

Sereno, who also is a National Geographic Society Explorer-In- Residence, led successful dinosaur-hunting expeditions to Africa in 1993, 1995 and 1997. The latest expedition is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. National Geographic plans to film documentaries during the expedition, Sereno said.

Entering a world of nomads where the men typically carry swords, the crew will work across 40 miles of desert. Sereno said the crew's base camp would be in a region called Agadez, "which encompasses an area the size of Illinois."

"We will be guided by local Tuareg nomads to bone beds," he said.

It was a Tuareg who guided Sereno in 1990 to the leg bone of the 135 million-year-old, 70-foot-long Jobaria, now on display at the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier.

The Sahara, with it's 120-degree days devoid of humidity, constantly brings the threat of dehydration, Sereno said. "That is our biggest concern," he said. "Fifty-two gallons of water are consumed daily."

Water will be trucked in by the ton and poured in bags large enough to last the crew a month, which is about the length of time the team will be spending at each of four planned excavation sites, Sereno said.

Besides water, the expedition's supply list includes five Land Rovers, 30 containers of eye drops, 144 AA batteries, 500 gallon- size plastic bags, 756 pounds of pasta, 600 rolls of toilet paper, 1,915 granola bars, eight 40-ounce jars of creamy peanut butter, and three pounds of garlic powder for spicing up food.

The team also will have 8,000 pounds of plaster for encasing bones and 20,000 pounds of equipment, including 125 pieces of computer gear being hauled in to create an expedition Web site -- www.projectexploration.org -- via satellite.

Sereno's wife, Gabrielle Lyons, is heading the project, called "Dinosaur Expedition 2000." It is part of Project Exploration , a non- profit science education organization working with Chicago Public Schools, dedicated to making paleontology and natural science accessible to city kids, which she co-founded with her husband.

The Web site, which will include field updates, a photo gallery and daily camp life stories with crew interviews, begins Sunday -- the day Sereno and the expedition team depart for Africa -- and will continue through Dec. 5.

"There are no plug-ins in the world's largest desert, so everything will be through satellite and we have to use generators," Lyons said.

Car batteries, inverters, satellite phones, antennas, digital cameras and laptops will be part of the setup. The cost to post one image online? Seven dollars a minute, Lyons said.

Lyons said besides bringing the expedition directly to kids so "they could be right there when discoveries are made," she hopes the interactivity will help break the stodgy stereotype of science in the classroom.

She said most of the biweekly postings would be done at night, when the temperatures are cooler. "We plan to bury the computers during the day (so they don't overheat)," Lyons said.

The expedition team includes five U. of C. paleontology students: David Blackburn, a fourth-year undergraduate from Chicago; Allison Beck, a graduate student from Memphis, Tenn.; Jack Conrad, a graduate student from Hurley, Mo.; Hans Larsson, a graduating Ph.D. student from Cobourg, Ontario, Canada; and Christian Sidor, a graduating Ph.D. student from West Hartford, Conn.

Also on the team are Rudyard Sadlier, an undergraduate at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Greg Wilson, a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley; Eric Duneman, a technician in Sereno's laboratory; Dr. Tim Lyman, medical director of Urgent Care, West Suburban Health Care in Oak Park; photographer Mike Hettwer of Chicago; and paleontologists Bourahima Moussa of Niger and Didier Dutheil of France.

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