Jonathan Geisler

Today was a day about water: water we need, water we use for work, and the water that used to be here. Today started like most; the tent quickly changed from a place of refuge to an oven as it heated up in the strong early morning sun. I am not the best person getting up in the morning. . . I wake up complaining. Usually my mouth is very dry. The humidity is very low at night, here at Ukhaa.

A quick draught from my canteen is the most effective way for me to wake up. Next stop, the low hills behind camp which is also the bathroom. More water, but none is drinkable or desirable. I then wander over to the morning campfire for some tea and something sweet. This morning we had about 30 gallons of water. With 17 people, that works out to less than 2 gallons of water per person. Not much when you consider cleaning, cooking, and drinking.

I fill up my canteen before heading out to look for fossils. Its amazing how much water you drink out in the desert. Dashzeveg, Jim, Mike, Guillermo, and Peter headed out in two cars laden with empty water cans to investigate a mountain spring some distance behind camp. What did they find? Nothing, they would have had better luck holding a cup in the air. The next closest potable water is about 3 hours drive away at Naran Bulak, where we camped on July 13th. Temur and Namdavah first had to fix the truck before they could leave.

Bolor and I head out a short distance from camp to prospect for fossils at a place called the "Camel Humps". After an hour or so of looking and numerous swigs from my canteen, I find my first good fossil of the day. It is the skull and partial skeleton of a multituberculate, an extinct mammal not closely related to any living forms. I lay back and ponder how the skull came into my hands. Again it goes back to water. Since the American Museum of Natural History first came to the Gobi to look for fossils, geologists have thought that the fossils at places like Ukhaa are the remains of animals that died in vicious sandstorms.

In the past several years, 2 geologists, David Loope and Lowell Dingus, have unraveled the mystery of how these animals died. Instead of being trapped in sand dunes, the mammal I found was caught in a torrent of mud and water caused when heavy rain fell on partially vegetated sand dunes. These floods were so rapid that poignant moments of drama were captured in stone: like the dinosaurs Protoceratops and Veloceraptor caught in a death embrace or an Oviraptor trapped brooding over its eggs.

This may explain how my multituberculate died, but not how it came to be exposed. Again, this requires water, either by freezing and spalling off chunks of rocks during the harsh Mongolian winter or during a pounding rain in the occasional thunderstorm that visits the desert.

Shortly after I went prospecting. Mark, Peter, and Saynbayer drove about 11 km to the west to a place called Zost wash, which is dry except during the heaviest rains. They went to excavate a small carnivorous dinosaur that Pete found yesterday called a dromaeosaur. To protect the fossil on its arduous journey from here to Ulaan Bataar and then to New York, the bone and encasing rock must be wrapped in plaster and burlap. The plaster must first be mixed with water to form a thick paste.

Burlap strips are then wetted and dipped in the plaster slurry. The plaster indurated burlap is then applied to the specimen and when dried, shazaam, an 80 million year fossil with its own protective jacket. Other finds of the day include the skull and bones of a primitive bird with many dinosaur-like features collected by Jim and Guillermo. By the way the bones were scattered over a wide area, they could tell the bones were deposited under a strong current.

Late in the day we all return to camp to enjoy an evening of good food and relaxation. However, each arrival is tempered by the news that we only have 15 gallons of water remaining. Temur and Saynbayer left for Naran Bulak around 4PM to go get water. Estimates of their return vary from 10 PM to 2 AM.

As our past days of travel indicate, things do not always go as planned in this harsh terrain. If the truck breaks down, delivery of the water could be delayed for several days. In that case maybe we will become the latest victims of Ukhaa Tolgod, although in contrast to our fossil friends, our problem stems from a lack instead of an overabundance of water.

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