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By Mark Norell
Now we are 9 years into it. By all accounts these have been successful expeditions. Paramount among the accomplishments is the discovery of Ukhaa Tolgod in 1993. Ukhaa Tolgod, which you will be reading and seeing more of in the weeks to come is an amazing fossil locality. It is starkly beautiful, perched on the south flanks of the Gilvent Uul. The red rocks have produced spectacular fossils like the first embryos of theropod dinosaurs, parent dinosaurs brooding their nests and the best preserved mammals from the age of dinosaurs ever found anywhere. Ukhaa Tolgod is the greatest locality yet found for animals from the age of dinosaurs. Since 1990 our expedition has evolved. Instead of old Russian tucks we now have a fleet of heavy military vehicles and sleek Mercedes Benz jeeps and trucks. Instead of dead reckoning (which worked pretty well drawing on the expertise of our Mongolian Colleagues), we traverse southern Mongolia using satellite navigation, plotted on satellite images. So equipped we are able to negotiate the most difficult of topography. We are now outfitted with almost as many creature comforts as home. We listen to our favorite music and dine on a wide variety of exceptional foods. We also work very hard.
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In 1990, scientists from the American Museum of Natural History were
given a unique opportunity- to develop an expedition to the great fossil
beds of Mongolia's Gobi desert. To us it was a dream come true, the
Gobi desert is the Xanadu, the Nirvana, the Valhalla, the Woodstock of
paleontological research areas. Fossils in Mongolia were first
discovered in the 1920's by scientists from the American Museum of
Natural History as part of the Central Asiatic Expeditions. These
expeditions ended in the late 20's amidst political turmoil. Now nearly
70 years later we were going back.
The 1990 trip was a modest affair; a trip organized to test the
waters in preparation for more ambitious work in subsequent years. In
June of 1990, Michael Novacek, Mark Norell, and Malcolm McKenna flew to
Beijing, caught the dusty overnight Trans Siberian to Ulaan Baatar, and
got our first taste of Mongolia. What awaited us was a country in
transition, the collapse of the adjacent Soviet Union shrunk the Russian
presence back within their borders. Much of the accompanying infrastructure went with it. Yet, vestiges of the Russian presence remained, among them well trained scientists who knew the Gobi Desert well, knew where the fossils were, and knew where others had not looked.
Principal among these is Demberylan Dashzeveg, our colleague in the
desert, who heads the Mongolian side of the expedition. Trained in
Moscow, Dash is a world class paleontologist with an international
reputation forged on meager resources and under often difficult
conditions. It was Dash who first led us into the desert in 1990. In
our few weeks in Mongolia, we sampled unusual food, traversed a great
swath of the country in aging and fragile Russian trucks, observed
sandstorms and endless vistas of steppe. We also found a few fossils,
but most importantly we developed a cooperative agreement with the
Mongolian Academy of Sciences for a collaborative field project in
Mongolia.
During the past 9 years we have relied on the expertise of a
group of dedicated people- too many to name here, that have contributed
to the success of these expeditions. Several of these you will meet
through this page in the next few weeks. So here we go. We don't know
what we will find yet, what mishaps will occur, or how we will feel a
month from now when we come out of the desert. That is part of the
adventure which we welcome you to join.