Dr.
Sereno excavating
a fossilized sauropod.
Location: Northern
Niger, Agadez Region
Age
of fossil beds: Lower
Cretaceous, 135 million years old
Primary
Goals: Investigate
lower cretaceous beds; develop a strategy
for leading a team into the Sahara
Accomplishments:
Discovery
of a sauropod graveyard. Sereno would return
with a team in 1993 and 1997 further investigate
and excavate this site.
Highlights:
A visit to the sauropod graveyard ...
"I and one assistant joined
several English colleagues on an Expedition across
the Sahara to Cretaceous beds in Niger.
The primary goals of this expedition was to excavate
a rich bed of fossil fish bones that had been
discovered on a previous expedition and to better
describe the strata of the region. My personal
goal was to learn how to take an expedition across
the worlds largest desert and to explore dinosaur-bearing
horizons in the same region as the fish beds.
Although the total length of the expedition exceeded
two months, I would be able to spend only 10 days
exploring the dinosaur beds.
We drove four vehicles from London, crossed the
Channel by ferry, and then drove south across
France. We passed by ferry to Tunisia, crossing
Algeria to arrive in Niger. We used compass
bearings and maps, because the global-positioning-system
of satellite navigation was not yet operative
in the Sahara.
David Ward, Peter Forey and their
team recovered abundant fossils of the coelocanth
Mawsonia and logged detailed geologic sections.
On the seventh day in search of dinosaur bone,
we were led to an impressive sauropod graveyard
by a local Tuareg chieftain. Some day, I
mused while gazing at a huge backbone that lay
exposed on the surface, I would return."
- Paul Sereno |
