Mike Novacek, Mark A. Norell

Today we continue to prospect, in the same area as yesterday, roaming around our own corner of the desert wilderness of the Gobi. Navigation in these parts is not guided by roads, just a compass direction and a glint of red rock on the horizon. Fortunately, our handheld Global Positioning Sytems (GPS) provided for some technological convenience. Once a GPS fix is made for a site we can drift back to that isolated spot with the proper route and compass bearing.

But not all paleontological tools are so sophisticated. In the morning, Amy Davidson, fossil preparator and excavator par excellence, breaks out the "Collecting box." The contents of this crate contain the basic implements of paleontological craft work. The excaliber of these paleontologists is a rock-hammer or pick, with the dead of sturdy forged steel that has a blunt front and a long curved pick, like the crest of a pterodactyl. Other items include a special glue, dilute enough to pour as only a thin film over the fossil, but strong enough to keep precious bones from shattering as they are removed from the ground. Toilet paper is used by the thousands of yards to wrap fossil specimens. Plaster with strips of burlap, or First Aid plaster bandages (the ones used to encase a broken leg) are critical for protecting a fossil as it is unearthed and transported. Sharp implements such as awls, chisels, and knives are used to probe the rock and pry a specimen loose. For the big dinosaur bones and other fossils of larger dimensions, crowbars also come in handy.

The small tools are crammed into a day pack or a fanny pack, ensuring there is room for the most precious item of all, a one liter bottle of water. The most hazardous aspect of paleontological field work is dehydration. What might seem to be a leisurely walk down a canyon can be an epic retreat if one gets bogged down in a circuitous route back to the car without sufficient drinking water. And the intricate system of gullies and tributaries of fossil badlands can deceptively minimize the distance of travel. What seems like a one-mile walk as the crow flies can be several miles of traversing the slopes.

Today we had minimal use of all those handy tools, and even minimal use of our boots. We drove our vehicles southwest, heading into a basin called Ingen Hol. The name refers to the shaggy spring molt of fur on a young camel, doubtless applied because of the stubble of small, scraggly "zak" trees along the canyon slopes. Ingen Hol is one of the lowest places in Mongolia (only 600 meters above sea level) and certainly one of the hottest. But today, like yesterday we were miraculously treated to temperatures in the low nineties. We drove, stopped, walked looked, drove some more, encountering some tantalizing but incomplete fragments of dinosaur foot bones. In the late afternoon a broken fan belt on the Russian Waz jeep forced us to take our Mercedes 15 miles back to camp, pick up a fan belt and return to the repair site.

Meanwhile a team of excavators encased the crocodile-like champsosaur found by Guillermo Rougier the previous day and extracted a 250-pound plaster monolith. Rescuers and excavators returned to camp by 9:30 PM, in time for asparagus and artichoke heart salad, chicken mole, refried beans and some lukewarm Sangria. We ate out of paper bowls with chopsticks -- a tradition that minimizes dishwashing and contamination -- no white table cloths and amber candles but excellent repast in fine desert ambience.

Sleep was instantaneous.

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