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Afrovenator Site
Location: Northern
Niger, Agadez region
Age
of fossil beds: Lower
Cretaceous, 135 million years old
Primary
Goals: Excavate
dinosaur graveyard, further explore lower
Cretaceous beds in the region
Accomplishments:
Discovery
of Afrovenator first relatively complete
predatory dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of
Africa; partial excavation of dinosaur graveyard;
excavation of near-complete skeleton of sauropod,
later named Jobaria.
Highlights:
Afrovenator and a giant sauropod
The 1993 expedition returned to the sauropod
graveyard Dr. Sereno discovered on his trip to
Niger in 1990. The team flew from Chicago to London,
loaded their trucks with equipment which had been
shipped from Chicago in massive metal shipping
containers, took the ferry to France and began
driving south. They drove through the south of
France and then traveled by ship across the Mediterranean,
landing in Algeria. The team then drove more than
a thousand miles through Algeria, into the Sahara
Desert and finally into the heart of Niger where
they could finally begin their work
Sauropod
Site in Niger, 1993
Excavating
the giant sauropod is hard labor that must be done
very carefully. First each bone is carved out of
the solid rock it's been encased in for 130 million
years. Team members must then wrap the bones in
plaster jackets to protect them during their journey
to the dinosaur lab in Chicago where the bones will
be studied.
The team has no lifting equipment in the desert
- they must use brute force to heave each massive
bone out of the ground and into the trucks, all
in the heat of the Sahara Desert.
Scientific
Announcements:
Afrovenator - announced October 10, 1994
Press
Release:
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/96/
960513.dinosaur.shtml
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