Niger 2000
Stats
Location: Niger
Age of fossil beds: 135 million years old to 90 million years old
Highlights
Brushing at the knee joint, Paul is dwarfed by the enormous limb of Jobaria.
Dr. Paul Sereno’s expedition team is in the Sahara Desert to recover a 600-toothed dinosaur…and reconstruct a picture of what dinosaur life was like on Africa 100 million years ago.
Our 14 -person team will crisscross northern Niger and explore dinosaur beds ranging in age from 135 million to 90 million years old. Our first stop will be in 110 million year old sediments where we will pursue more complete remains of Nigersaurus, a bizarre long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur we discovered during the 1997 expedition to Niger.
Our itinerary includes a visit to the area where, in 1997, our team excavated skeletons of the long-necked Jobaria, an ancient lineage that survived and flourished only in Africa.
One of our last stops will be in the 90-million-year-old beds of remote northern Niger that correspond to the layer where, in 1995, We uncovered Deltadromeus, a new 30-foot long predator, and the first skull of the Tyrannosaurus-sized meat-eater, Carcharodontosaurus.
