In just two days we will leave all
we are familiar with to spend two
months in the heart of the world's
largest desert looking for dinosaurs
and fossils.
Niger's Sahara Desert preserves
some of the richest dinosaur-bearing
rocks in the world and our expedition
team of students and professionals
had been planning the trip for more
than a year.
WHY AFRICA?
Why bring a team of 11 people into
the world's largest desert to look
for dinosaurs?
Sand dunes
intermingle with fossil-bearing rocks
in the area that will be under exploration
during Camp 3.
The first dinosaurs found in Africa
were unearthed and named more than
150 years ago and nearly 500 dinosaurs
have been named since then. That's
why it's hard to imagine that there
aren't any dinosaurs left to be found.
But there are!
There is a place where dinosaur
bones poke out of the ground, a place
almost as big as the continental United
States. And most of these dinosaurs
have never been discovered or named.
Where is this place? Africa's Sahara
Desert.
Now, you might wonder: how could
a fossil treasure- trove like this
be left to the wind and sand all these
years? The answer is simple: it is
difficult to work in the Sahara. It
is no small challenge to bring out
the supplies you need, survive the
heat, wind, and sand, and somehow
dig up and transport tons of fossil
bone to a laboratory on the other
side of the globe for cleaning and
study.
EARLY WORK
IN THE SAHARA
European paleontologists made the
first scientific reports on dinosaur
bones from the Sahara more than 50
years ago. When we first came to work
in the Tenere in 1997, we had been
preceded by the work of two French
paleontologists: Albert Lapparent
in the1940s and Philippe Taquet in
the 1960s and early 70s.
Camels and Touaregs dressed in their
finest parade
onto the festival grounds at The Cure
Salee to kick off events.
Lapparent did much
of his prospecting alone or with an
assistant and often prospected on
camelback. There were no paved roads
anywhere in the desert. In preliminary
surveys of the desert, he found and
described isolated dinosaur bones
and giant crocodile teeth.
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