TEN YEARS OF MOVING DIRT…
In 1993 we started with Niger’s
135 million-year-old rocks –
we unearthed the predator Afrovenator
and got our first glimpse of Jobaria.
The Jobaria
site preserved multiple skeletons
– including nearly-complete
adult and juvenile specimens.
The 1997 Expedition took us back
to 135-million-year-old beds to complete
Jobaria’s skeleton
…and enabled us to begin to
explore 110-million year-old beds.
In them we unearthed the massive fish-eater,
Suchomimus. During the 2000
Expedition, we not only worked the
first two chapters of Cretaceous-age
beds in Niger and collected more than
20 tons of fossils during the expedition
(including the skeleton of SuperCroc,
a crocodile as long as a bus), we
got our first taste of Africa’s
youngest beds: 90-million-year-old
rocks that were so rich we ran out
of plaster before the expedition ended.
The primary goal of
the 2003 expedition is to find out
what kinds of animals lived on Africa
during the last chapter of the dinosaur
era – we’re in search
of Africa’s youngest dinosaurs.
Snatching up fish with an elongated,
toothy skull
and monstrous hand claws, Suchomimus
attracts
a large crowd at the Flamme de la
Paix in Agadez.
It will be a long road
before we are able to piece together
the world of Africa’s youngest
dinosaurs – but with hard work,
and keen eyes, the 2003 Expedition
team will begin to push back the frontiers
of what we know of the last survivors….
Gabrielle Lyon
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