October 16:

1. Allison and Gabe are the only two women on your expedition team. Why do you suppose so few women are interested and involved in paleontology?
   
   Answer:
   I think that many women are interested in paleontology, but because of its history it has been hard for women to become established professionally in vertebrate paleontology (VP). As with many of the natural sciences, paleontology has its formal origins in the 1800s - a time when women were discouraged from pursuing careers of any type, but especially sciences. Women who did have careers outside of the home were generally teachers or nurses.
   
   Vertebrate paleontology is considered a "field science" because we spend a lot of time outdoors doing physical work. Some people feel that women aren't strong or determined enough to do such work (they are very wrong!) I decided to become a paleontologist when I was in the fourth grade. I really liked fossils and the outdoors. I love solving mysteries and the history of the earth is the toughest one I know. Each fossil is a piece of the puzzle and brings new information to light.
   
   Paleontology is the perfect career for me because I have many interests: I enjoy problem-solving, math and statistics. I also love being outdoors and working hard. In addition, I enjoy traveling, writing, and critical thinking. Most of all, I love doing my own research and sharing my findings with others. I can wear whatever I want to work, and I have the freedom to come up with my own projects and my own style of research. I could get a job at a museum, or university anywhere in the world. And the best part of my job is that it takes me all over the world! I think that women absolutely belong in VP. I have had very few role models to follow since I decided my career path and I would like to see many more women in VP. I encourage any girl to pursue her interests. For all of these reasons - historical and personal - I hope I can be a role model for young women who want to be paleontologists, too.
   
   
2. We really love the photo gallery, and we are especially curious about the Camp Life picture: mmmm-1. What is that creature? It looks like it is a caterpillar or a grub, and did he really eat it?
   
   Answer:
   It was a grub that would have metamorphosed into an adult insect of some kind. Jeff found it while digging. It is a great picture because it looks like he is about to eat it-but actually he didn't. There are a lot of strange insects and plants that you encounter when traveling to very different places like the Sahara.

   We don't eat insects - although some people here do. What we mainly eat is food that we bring with us from the states. We brought a ton and a half of dried and dehydrated food, including rice, pasta, and couscous. We use dried soup mixes, spices and rehydrated vegetables to make sauces and eat a lot of granola for breakfast. We have to avoid canned goods because they are too heavy, and nothing that needs refridgeration because we don't have a refrigerator.

   You can check out our list of supplies online to get a better idea of some of the other foods we bring with us.
   

3. About how many people does it take to reconstruct a dinosaur : from the research prior to the expedition, to when the fossils are found in the field, through the cleaning process; to the final skeletal reconstruction? How long does this process usually take?
   
   Answer:
   

   Probably about a hundred people have a hand on the dinosaur skeleton before you see it mounted in the museum. First there is the team that digs it up. Then there are people that help transport the plaster-covered bones, technicians that clean the bones, others that cast and mold the bones, artists that sculpt missing bones using the ones that are preserved, students and paleontologists that study and measure the bones, and then a team that works with metal to put the bones together as a skeleton.

   This process takes years. Some dinosaurs found many years ago have yet to be cleaned or studied and stored in the basements of museums and can be "rediscovered" by paleontologists who weren't even on the expeditions that uncovered them.

   The fastest we have developed a skeleton after its discovery is about one year when we worked on the 27 foot long skeleton of the meat-eater Afrovenator. Jobaria is much bigger and took a year and a half.
   

4. How do you know where are the best places to look for dinosaurs? Do you use any data/ materials from NASA?
   
   Answer:
   

   We often use maps, some of which were made from high-flying airplanes. We used a satellite image once that was very helpful. You could see the difference between the areas that were sand-covered and the areas that exposed bare rock. We wanted to find areas of bear rock because that is where you could find the fossils. This image was developed with infrared light rather than the light that we see with our eyes.

   Most of the time, however, we use three sources of information to guide us: reports of other paleontologists, geology maps that show us where the dinosaur-age rock is located, and topographic maps to show us how to get there. Then it's the hard work of prospecting on the ground and using the information gathered by walking around for hours to help locate the best places.
   

5. Why do you call the Nigersaurus bizarre? What makes it so different from the other discoveries? Was it just the number of teeth, or are there other peculiar things about it? Thank you for letting us share this expedition with us!
   
   Answer:
   The number of teeth is very unusual but the shape of its jaws is, well, bizarre! The mouth expands to each side beyond the side of the skull, sort of like a hammerhead shark. There is no dinosaur that has ever been found with jaws shaped like that. The rest of its body is not that strange. Nigersaurus was a distant cousin of Diplodocus. It walked on four legs and had a long tail. But the shape of its skull will open some eyes pretty wide when we get it together!

Denise Edelson 's 3rd Grade Class
Solomon School

Letter from the Team

Dear Mrs. Edelson's class,

Hi! Thanks for asking what it takes to become a paleontologist - it's something that people come at from all different directions. But you can start now - as you'll learn from Paul's answers. By the way, Paul answered these early this morning on his way out to Camp 3. One of the things we hope to find is a pretty complete skeleton with as many bones as we can get. You're thinking like us, now!

Stay warm in Chicago - you can bet we're pretty hot over here. Make sure to get your teacher to tell you lots of stories about HER paleontology experience this summer with Project Exploration and the Junior Paleontologists. She can really excavate!

-Gabrielle

1. How did you learn to become a paleontologist?
   Did someone help you?
   
   
   Answer:
   I learned about fossils first when I visited a large rock quarry not far from Chicago. I found a fossil worm and my brother found a fossil leaf. In my grade school, I saw a film about a paleontologist who found human fossils in Africa. I thought that was hard but very interesting work. Later, I learned more about fossils at the Field Museum. Many years later, I took some classes about fossils in college. My teachers helped me learn about fossils. I learned the most, however, from studying books about fossils on my own. Eventually, I had the chance to lead an expedition to find the fossils that nobody else had found.
   
   
2. Have you ever found all the bones to one dinosaur? If yes, what dinosaur was it? How many bones did it have?
   
   Answer:
   I have never found a perfectly complete dinosaur skeleton. There are many small bones in the skull and skeleton, and it is nearly impossible that they all are preserved if the skeleton was moved in any way after its death. After most dinosaurs die, their skeletons are moved by predators, scavengers, and water and wind, before they are finally buried and fossilized. Then, some part of the skeleton must be exposed on the surface so that you can find it. That's when a lot of bones can get lost or damaged --as the skeleton is eroding on the surface of the ground before its discovery. The closest I have come to discovering a complete skeleton is with the little dinosaur Eoraptor, one of the oldest dinosaurs. Now there are two very good skeletons. One lacks only the tip of the tail. The other lacks only part of the skull and a few toes.
   
   
3. Which bones are the hardest to find? Why?
   
   Answer:
   The small bones - or the skeletons of small dinosaurs that are composed of small bones. That's because these bones are much more delicate and easy to destroy than the larger bones. A large bone can roll a long way down a river after a dinosaur dies and get buried and fossilized. But a small one will break into a lot of pieces and disappear. So it's the small dinosaurs that generally are hardest to find, and the smallest bones, like the tiny ear bone, that are almost always missing.
   
   
4. Where will you put your new 600-toothed dinosaur?
   
   Answer:
   Right now some of the dinosaurs that my teams and I have found around the world are on display in different museums, but there is no single place where you can see them all. I hope that in the future, the 600-toothed dinosaur can join the others in a big exhibition space devoted to the dinosaurs that once lived on Africa.
   
   
5. Could you find fossils in quicksand?
   
   Answer:
   There is no proven case of fossilization in quicksand. It is a very rare kind of place for an animal to die. Much more common is mud. A lot of animals get stuck in the mud near water holes or other soft spots, and they can get buried and fossilized. Some animals have been covered by sand in sand storms. The majority die right where they spend most of their lives and are buried by rivers and floods.