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Because of your ongoing support, our curators can initiate new research, make awesome discoveries, and present their findings to learners of every age and background, within our halls and around the world.
[BLUSTERY WIND]
[Curator Michael Novacek, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, sits under a tarp as wind blows across the Gobi desert landscape in the background.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK (Curator, Division of Paleontology): My name is Michael Novacek. I'm a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and I'm a paleontologist.
[Paleontologists Michael Novacek and Maureen O’Leary stand in the midst of a vast, sandy desert.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: We are in Mongolia, in Central Asia.
[Expedition team members uncover a dinosaur fossil. Behind them is a landscape of dramatic cliffs.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: This is one of the world's great places for dinosaurs.
[A paleontologist applies a fixative to stabilize an exposed fossil.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: It's very rich with dinosaurs and other vertebrates that lived millions of years ago.
[Novacek and two other researchers walk through a rocky, desert landscape, looking at the ground for fossils.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: On this expedition, we are collecting more specimens because every year we find something new and interesting.
[Two paleontologists examine a fossil.]
HONGYU YI (Associate Professor, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences): This is not the croc that we used to find.
MAUREEN O’LEARY (Professor, Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University): That’s amazing.
HONGYU YI: So, it’s something new.
[Novacek speaks to the camera.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: Whether it's dinosaurs or eggs or small mammals that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.
[Paleontologists Novacek and O’Leary confer with two geologists in a rocky, desert landscape.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: And we're also doing some very detailed studies of the rocks…
[A geologist wearing ear protectors and a face mask drills into a rock face. Another geologist excavates a rock sample from a dry, cracked slope.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: …so we can get a better idea of how old the dinosaurs were, and how old the rocks were when they were deposited.
[Expedition team members unload supplies from a large truck. Suitcases and large backpacks are piled next to large felt rugs.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: Your support goes to expeditions like these to make new discoveries,
[An expedition team member examines a small fossil using a loupe. Novacek and O’Leary survey a desert landscape in front of a tall, reddish formation. Paleontologists work together to excavate a fossil.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: …to find out more about the history of life, and the important events in the history of life, and to share that with other scientists, and certainly the public…
[In the Museum’s Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs, a volunteer shows the skulls of a dinosaur and a bird to a young student.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: …through our exhibitions and educational programs.
[Novacek speaks to the camera.]
MICHAEL NOVACEK: Thank you for your support.