Paleontologists by Thom Holmes

Author:Thom Holmes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC

Sereno stands with a full-size model of Spinosaurus, a huge, semiaquatic dinosaur.

The Most Massive Expedition

After having already made three trips to Africa, Sereno mounted his largest expedition ever in 2000. He used what he had learned about traveling quickly and efficiently to Niger to maximize his time in the field. Sereno’s 2000 expedition team consisted of fourteen people: students, professional paleontologists, and fossil-hunting enthusiasts. The entire trip lasted for 116 days, 96 of which were spent in the field digging for dinosaurs and other fossils. The superefficient team even maintained a Web site from the field so that interested visitors could learn about daily discoveries, read messages from team members, or even see what was on the team’s menu for dinner.

Although having a Web site was considered to be innovative in 2000, the computer age could do nothing to make the backbreaking work of digging fossils any easier. In the desolate, sand-covered regions of the Sahara Desert, Sereno’s team used many of the same techniques for finding and digging fossils that had been perfected by other scientists decades before. To make the best use of the expedition’s time, Sereno met with the team at 6:45 a.m. daily to go over the plans for the day. During their first days in the field, the team carefully walked the fossil-bearing areas looking for specimens and then set about the painstaking task of digging them up. Several dig camps were set up, and the team was divided so that more than one site could be dug at the same time.

Living in the desert for four months was often difficult. Occasional sandstorms interrupted the team’s work. Forty mile-per-hour (sixty-four-kilometer-per-hour) winds would have blown their tents over if they had not properly fastened them to the ground with stakes. Temperatures from day to night in the desert often fluctuated wildly by 80°F (27°C). One of the hottest temperature readings was higher than 120°F (49°C). The team brought along ten pounds (five kilograms) of sunscreen to protect themselves from the sun. They lived on canned and packaged foods because no refrigeration was available. Items on the menu often included freeze-dried chunks of chicken and powdered milk and cheese. The team hauled more than 104 gallons (394 liters) of diesel fuel with them for their vehicles. Of course, the desert had no bathrooms, so the toilet consisted of “a shovel, toilet paper, and the nearest dune.”7

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