WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:04.200 Welcome. This is Marcia for Radio I, and today I 2 00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:08.560 will be reading National Geographic magazine dated August twenty twenty five, 3 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:12.560 which is donated by the publisher as a reminder. RADIOI 4 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:15.480 is a reading service intended for people who are blind 5 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:18.800 or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read 6 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:23.760 printed material. Please join me now for the first article 7 00:00:24.039 --> 00:00:28.519 entitled how to Retrieve fifty five tons of Dinosaur Bones 8 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:35.119 from the Sahara Desert by Paul Serno. Millions of years ago, 9 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:38.439 what's now North Africa was a lush landscape teeming with 10 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:41.880 an incredible variety of life. To reveal more about the 11 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:47.200 mysteries of this lost age, paleontologist Paul Serino mounted perhaps 12 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:53.399 the boldest dinosaur hunt ever attempted. As the Saharan sun 13 00:00:53.679 --> 00:00:58.399 rose on my wayland waylaid team one morning in September 14 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:02.159 twenty twenty two, it seemed to burn with particular intensity. 15 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:05.280 For nearly three weeks. We'd been holed up in a 16 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:09.400 mud walled compound in the oasis town of Agadez in 17 00:01:09.680 --> 00:01:14.719 central Nizier, stalled because of officials insistence on assembling for 18 00:01:14.879 --> 00:01:18.439 us a large armed escort. Now as dawn broke, we 19 00:01:18.439 --> 00:01:21.680 were finally ready to embark. Nearly one hundred people packed 20 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:25.920 into fifteen vehicles, a motley caravan of SUVs, pickups, and 21 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:29.680 one large dump truck, all strapped with sand, ladders and 22 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:34.439 spare tires, heading out on an extraordinary desert dinosaur hunt, 23 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:39.640 without question the most ambitious of my career. Among our 24 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:44.599 number were tareg guides and drivers, a film crew, sixty 25 00:01:44.599 --> 00:01:48.439 four armed guards, and my paleo dream team of twenty 26 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:52.879 students and freshly minted professors recruited to spend three months 27 00:01:53.079 --> 00:01:57.760 venturing across one of the planet's least hospitable landscapes. Our 28 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:00.799 mission was to explore and excavate three d distinct sites 29 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:05.200 spread across hundreds of miles of blazing roadless desert. The 30 00:02:05.239 --> 00:02:07.760 fossils we found we would ship to my University of 31 00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:12.240 Chicago fossil Lab for careful cleaning and study, later returning 32 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:16.719 them for display in Niger to celebrate the country's stunning 33 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:22.000 ancient heritage. I had crisscrossed Nizier's Sahara during eleven previous 34 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:25.800 expeditions going back thirty two years. The last two in 35 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.680 twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, had been for reconnaissance, and 36 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:32.960 I'd spotted bone rich pockets in some of the desert's 37 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:37.360 most remote and win sand swept corners with dinosaur skeletons 38 00:02:37.439 --> 00:02:40.439 jutting from the desert floor, But without the team or 39 00:02:40.479 --> 00:02:43.319 tools to collect them, I could only log the sites 40 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:47.280 and imagine our return trip. Then a global pandemic shut 41 00:02:47.319 --> 00:02:49.599 down the world, and I spent two years drawing up 42 00:02:49.639 --> 00:02:54.120 an audacious plan and fundraising with little success. That is 43 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.879 until a benefactor requesting anonymity agreed to fully fund the quest. 44 00:02:59.319 --> 00:03:03.400 My appeal had aimed at our innate human curiosity, a 45 00:03:03.639 --> 00:03:09.039 chance to uncover creatures from paleontologies. Last Great Frontier Nijera 46 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:14.080 is a dno wonderland because of two chance geologic events. 47 00:03:14.479 --> 00:03:17.319 The first unfolded one hundred and eighty million years ago 48 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:21.680 during the early Jurassic, when the great land mass Gondwana 49 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:25.479 began to break apart, forming a massive depression in the 50 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:28.360 center of what is now the West African nation, then 51 00:03:28.479 --> 00:03:32.280 a verdant region teeming with life for millions of years. 52 00:03:32.280 --> 00:03:36.159 The depression took in sediment and the skeletons of dinosaurs 53 00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:40.400 and other creatures. The second event happened twenty million years ago, 54 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:44.840 when a volcanic hotspot raised what's known as the ear 55 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:49.039 massif on the edge of this depression, tilting the strata 56 00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:53.680 upward and returning to the surface the now fossilized skeletons. 57 00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:58.639 Driving across these rock layers today, heading from Agadez into 58 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:02.759 the open desert is a through deep time. Our timeline 59 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:06.000 was ambitious even before the delay in Agadez, and the 60 00:04:06.080 --> 00:04:10.479 expedition's success would hinge on benefiting from lessons I'd learned 61 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:13.800 in the past, along with some novel technology we would 62 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:17.839 deploy in the field. Our perseverance would be tested many 63 00:04:17.879 --> 00:04:20.600 if my young colleagues had never set foot in the Sahira, 64 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:24.560 worked under armed guard in one hundred thirty degree heat, 65 00:04:24.839 --> 00:04:27.720 or gone a month without a shower. Those with me 66 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:34.040 on previous expeditions, meanwhile, had seen it all, food poisoning, malaria, sandstorms, 67 00:04:34.399 --> 00:04:40.000 expedition ending breakdowns, gun toting bandits, government coups, and yet 68 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:43.279 I am always eager to go back. No one knows 69 00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:45.959 the land and its secrets better than those who live 70 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:50.560 on it, and our nearest, our site, nearest to Agadez 71 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:53.680 was a return to a tantalizing find that a local 72 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:57.519 Tareg Nomad had shown us years before. He'd let my 73 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:01.360 team by motorbike in to the desert to a spot 74 00:05:01.439 --> 00:05:06.199 that the Tuareg called chichikan Karan, or place of Insects 75 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:09.920 for the locusts that swarm after seasonal rains. It's a 76 00:05:09.959 --> 00:05:13.079 gravel rise about ten feet high that stretches for nearly 77 00:05:13.120 --> 00:05:16.879 a mile and a half across the acacia studded ir 78 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:20.800 Haser plane. Atop the little ridge, a series of large, 79 00:05:20.839 --> 00:05:25.959 spool shaped vertebrae breached the surface. Some digging exposed more 80 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:30.360 of the backbone, which belonged to a fifty foot long sauropod, 81 00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:35.120 the classification given to long necked plant eating dinosaurs. For 82 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:38.399 this expedition, my team fanned out over the rise and 83 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:42.399 quickly made a series of stunning discoveries, encountering four more 84 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:46.439 of these massive creatures, including one whose neck ended with 85 00:05:46.519 --> 00:05:51.600 the most cherished of paleoprizes, a skull. All four seemingly 86 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:55.439 belonged to the same, yet unnamed species. We nicknamed it 87 00:05:55.560 --> 00:06:02.120 iPod shorthand for an ir Haser Plane sauropod. The elevated 88 00:06:02.160 --> 00:06:07.240 fossil field meanwhile became Sauropod Island from the details of 89 00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:11.040 its skeleton. I suspected our iPod dated to the Middle Jurassic, 90 00:06:11.560 --> 00:06:14.759 some one hundred sixty million years ago, but without an 91 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.879 ash bed to date it by this was only a guest. 92 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:21.360 Finding a seam of volcanic ash near a dig site 93 00:06:21.560 --> 00:06:26.079 is every paleontologist dream since crystals with it within it 94 00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:31.879 can contained datable radioactive isotopes. I'd had my eyes out 95 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:36.319 for ashbeds on previous expeditions, but like every Saherin explorer 96 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:39.720 before me, I'd come up dry. This time, however, I 97 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:43.160 brought along one of the world's great time tellers, MIT 98 00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:50.519 research scientists and isotope whiz Yihan Rameizani. Yihan's big discovery 99 00:06:50.759 --> 00:06:54.079 came by accident. After a rock punctured attire on one 100 00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:57.879 of our battered land rovers not far from Sauropod Island. 101 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:00.360 As a few of us set about the here, he 102 00:07:00.439 --> 00:07:03.839 scrambled up the side of a nearby cliff. Soon Jahan 103 00:07:04.079 --> 00:07:06.560 was calling my name, and I found him poking at 104 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:10.560 a greenish clay, an indicator of ancient volcanism to his 105 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:14.439 expert eye. Would that clay contain the crystals we'd need 106 00:07:14.439 --> 00:07:18.199 to date our fossils? Jahan smiled at me. Confidently, I'll 107 00:07:18.279 --> 00:07:21.360 bet my career on this one, he said. Finding bones 108 00:07:21.399 --> 00:07:24.720 at Sauropot Island was the easy part. The challenge was 109 00:07:24.759 --> 00:07:27.199 whether we could collect all we saw in the three 110 00:07:27.240 --> 00:07:30.040 weeks we could devote to the site. Most of my 111 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:33.680 team doubted it was possible. Thirty years ago it likely 112 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:36.240 wouldn't have been, but our tools have come a long way. 113 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:39.399 Some of what we bring to the Sahara today still 114 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:43.040 resembles the equipment and supplies from my first fory in 115 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:46.680 nineteen ninety three. We still use plaster, burr, lap and 116 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:51.120 wood to cocoon fossils in portable field jackets. Our land 117 00:07:51.199 --> 00:07:54.800 rovers are trusty survivors of pass trucks. We still get 118 00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:58.839 by on packets of dehydrated food, although these days adding 119 00:07:58.879 --> 00:08:02.959 boiling water to a package labeled basagna yields something closer 120 00:08:02.959 --> 00:08:06.759 to the raw deal. But new gear and technologies have 121 00:08:06.879 --> 00:08:11.720 dramatically transformed both the speed of excavation and the imaging 122 00:08:11.839 --> 00:08:16.279 of fossils as they emerge. Drill breakers powered by lithium 123 00:08:16.279 --> 00:08:23.000 batteries have largely replaced chisels and rock hammers. Lightweight electric 124 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:27.639 jackhammers have replaced picks, GPS and digital imaging technology have 125 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:33.759 replaced hand drawn maps, while drones and photogrammetry can generate 126 00:08:33.799 --> 00:08:36.919 three D images in minutes on scales that range from 127 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:41.159 sprawling dig sites to individual bones. At Sauropod Island, a 128 00:08:41.240 --> 00:08:45.279 drone flying overhead captured the entire scene, our tracks weaving 129 00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:49.240 between skeletons like ant trails. I wouldn't say modern equipment 130 00:08:49.360 --> 00:08:52.799 marks makes the work easy, but it does make the 131 00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:57.039 job safer and more efficient. Together with gold, good old 132 00:08:57.039 --> 00:09:00.480 fashioned sweat and fifteen hour days, it helped our efforts 133 00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:04.559 pay off. When we pulled away from Saarpot Island triumphant 134 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:08.480 and exhilarated, our trucks strained under a load of some 135 00:09:08.600 --> 00:09:13.879 twenty five tons of fossils. Even more remote country awaited 136 00:09:13.960 --> 00:09:17.960 us at a site called god Dubufara said to me, 137 00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:21.240 in place where camel's fear to tread. It is Africa's 138 00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:24.000 most famously fossil rich area, in the heart of the 139 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:31.200 Sahara's hyparidide Tenerai region, a desert within a desert. Although 140 00:09:31.200 --> 00:09:33.200 I've never felt so much as a drop of rain. 141 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.879 In Gaudo Fauona, my team made a fossil discovery three 142 00:09:38.080 --> 00:09:41.120 there years Ago. That's a reminder of how much wetter 143 00:09:41.320 --> 00:09:44.399 the area once was. It wasn't a dinosaur at all, 144 00:09:44.679 --> 00:09:51.720 but rather prehistory's largest dino, dinosaur eating Crocodilian Sarkuskus. We 145 00:09:51.799 --> 00:09:55.240 took to calling it supercroc, a nickname that has stuck 146 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:59.519 in the media. We left from Agades, where we deposited 147 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:03.279 fossil between digs in front of us. A roadless expanse 148 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:06.879 of rock gave way to a majestic but daunting dunescape, 149 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:09.759 unfolding as far as the eye or drone could see. 150 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:14.240 Experienced local guides are essential in such terrain, where sinkholes 151 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:18.279 of unexpectedly soft sand can myer vehicles driven by even 152 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:23.399 veteran Saharan cans. Our large dump truck loaded with one 153 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:26.720 thousand liter tanks of water was prone to sinking. Digging 154 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:30.000 it out became a familiar routine, extending what could be 155 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:35.600 a single day's journey to Guadofaula, Faula into three. You 156 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:39.080 know you've arrived at Gaudofaula when you see the fossil 157 00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:43.159 bones tinged red with irons, scattered in every direction among 158 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:46.799 low rocky ridges. We were looking for species that lived 159 00:10:47.080 --> 00:10:51.679 alongside supercroc in the early Cretaceous, some one hundred ten 160 00:10:51.759 --> 00:10:57.440 million years ago. Our first tacket target was Auranosaurus, a 161 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:02.080 thirty foot long sail backed herbival My team had encountered 162 00:11:02.120 --> 00:11:06.519 one year's had encountered one years before, and had covered 163 00:11:06.559 --> 00:11:09.600 it to protect it from wind erosion until we could 164 00:11:09.639 --> 00:11:13.159 someday return. We found it again before long, a gorgeous 165 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:16.440 row of plank like bones, as tall as a human 166 00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:21.080 and arranged in an array like a peacock's fantail. It 167 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:25.080 was the first intact bony dinosaur sale ever discovered, and 168 00:11:25.159 --> 00:11:28.679 studying it will help solve the mystery of what biological 169 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:33.559 purposes These protrusions served to make up for our initial delay. 170 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:38.960 In Agadez, we worked deep into the night excavating Aurhonosaurus, 171 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.919 relying on generated powered lamps. Although the work was exhausting 172 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:47.080 around the clock, accavation has its perks. In the heart 173 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:50.879 of the Sahara, nighttime temperatures plummeted to half the day's 174 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:55.360 one hundred twenty five degree high. Insects attracted by our 175 00:11:55.399 --> 00:12:01.320 bizarre desert light show retired before midnight. All told, we 176 00:12:01.360 --> 00:12:06.039 would pack out two duns two tons of Rhanosaurus fossils 177 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:11.279 in just three days. Guaudaphoya hides its secrets under drifting, 178 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:15.200 shifting sand. You might walk right past a hidden skull 179 00:12:15.240 --> 00:12:18.440 one year, only to spot it the next. On an 180 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:22.240 earlier visit, we had discovered a petio like stretch of 181 00:12:22.320 --> 00:12:26.559 exposed sandstone that was packed to a jaw dropping degree 182 00:12:26.840 --> 00:12:29.879 with the embedded bones of raptors, turtles, fish, and more, 183 00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:36.039 what palaeontologists call a microsite. As I returned to Gaudaphoya, 184 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:39.799 among the foremost questions on my mind was whether the 185 00:12:39.879 --> 00:12:43.279 microsite would be buried under deep sand, and if it wasn't, 186 00:12:43.559 --> 00:12:46.720 how we might carve it up and collect it. I 187 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:48.840 held my breath as I neared the spot and saw 188 00:12:48.840 --> 00:12:52.519 a towering dune, but miraculously, just yards away from it, 189 00:12:52.919 --> 00:12:56.120 the microsite was exposed, and soon it was surrounded by 190 00:12:56.240 --> 00:13:00.480 awestruck palaeontologus on their hands and knees marveling at the 191 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:04.120 sandstone bound menagerie. We used a rock saw with the 192 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:07.559 largest diamond covered blade we could find to slice down 193 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:11.440 about six inches into the bone patio, hoping to cut 194 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:14.240 it into bricks we could carry out in our usual 195 00:13:14.320 --> 00:13:18.559 field jackets. But would the slabs separate cleanly. When the 196 00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:20.879 first one did with little more than a tap of 197 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:24.759 a chisel, my team whooped. I felt like mclindlow at first, 198 00:13:25.080 --> 00:13:28.960 then like Darwin aboard the HMS Beagle, knowing a million 199 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:33.399 bones of unknown species were ours for the collecting. Painstakingly 200 00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:37.600 removing rock or sediment from around fossil treasures like these 201 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:42.960 might require years of lab time, But there at Glaudifhoya, 202 00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:45.720 one of my team members submerged a block from the 203 00:13:45.799 --> 00:13:49.240 microsite in water, and we discovered, to our amazement that 204 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:53.759 the sandstone matrix softened instantly, meaning this trove could be 205 00:13:53.799 --> 00:13:57.679 freed with minimal effort. Back at the fossil lab, the 206 00:13:57.759 --> 00:14:01.879 thrill of that realization helped power through six long days 207 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:07.519 transforming the bone patio into ten tons of jacketed slabs. 208 00:14:08.919 --> 00:14:11.080 We headed to our final site with only two weeks 209 00:14:11.200 --> 00:14:14.600 left in the field, feeling the pressure. Three years before, 210 00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:16.879 we'd come to this place, some one hundred and twenty 211 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:21.000 miles east of Agadez, after investigating a passage i'd read 212 00:14:21.039 --> 00:14:26.240 in a nineteen fifties monograph. Its author, French geologist Hugh Forrey, 213 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:30.639 described an isolated site where he had found saber shaped 214 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:35.440 teeth like those of the t rex esque Egyptian predator 215 00:14:36.600 --> 00:14:41.200 Carco Dandosaurus. With some effort, we had found this site, 216 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:45.600 and along with it plenty more teeth, confirming Forre's understanding 217 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:49.559 of the beds as Late Cretaceous, some ninety five million 218 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:52.399 years old. We might have left with nothing more than 219 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:55.639 teeth if not for a serendipitous visitor to our camp. 220 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:59.759 He wore a black trench coat, shesh head wrap, and 221 00:14:59.799 --> 00:15:03.320 some glasses, with a Tauregg's sword slung over his shoulder. 222 00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:07.200 His name was Abdul Nassar, and he offered to take 223 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.039 us to a bigger bone field. As he led us 224 00:15:10.039 --> 00:15:14.000 deep into one of the Sahara's great ergs or land seas, 225 00:15:14.039 --> 00:15:17.159 over and between dunes, our land rover struggled to keep 226 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:20.080 pace with his Honda motorbike. He was feeling like a 227 00:15:20.080 --> 00:15:23.759 fool's errand until Abdul pulled up alongside a thigh bone. 228 00:15:23.799 --> 00:15:26.519 As long as I am tall, it clearly belonged to 229 00:15:26.559 --> 00:15:30.200 a skeleton. In every direction there was more bone. With 230 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:33.559 little daylight and fuel, we were able only to note 231 00:15:33.559 --> 00:15:38.399 the GPS coordinates of the place called Jangwaibi and grab 232 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:43.919 a few jaw pieces we assumed were from Carcarodontosaurus. But 233 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:46.879 assembling the jaw back in Chicago, I realized the teeth 234 00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:50.480 and tooth sockets were all wrong. They belonged instead to 235 00:15:50.559 --> 00:15:54.679 the sail backed predator Spinosaurus, who was the first record 236 00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:58.000 of one of these water loving beasts found so far inland, 237 00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:01.759 and I suspected it was a news species. Our return 238 00:16:01.799 --> 00:16:05.840 trip to janguwebe took us back across the airG We 239 00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:09.440 have scutched among rocky areas, each smaller than the last 240 00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:12.720 as we traveled deeper into it. We set up camp 241 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:15.320 near where we found the jaw pieces, and we've been 242 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:18.320 there no more than an hour. My colleague Don Vidal, 243 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:23.799 a seasoned paleontologist from Spain, came running toward me, eyes gleaming. 244 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:26.960 It's here, he said the skull I found. Much of 245 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.879 my team gathered around a toothy snout jutting up from 246 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:33.480 the rock. These were the first Spinosaurus skull bones found 247 00:16:33.519 --> 00:16:36.919 in place in more than a century. My colleagues stood 248 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:40.960 mesmerized as the significance of the find sank in. Some 249 00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:44.240 even wept. A few hours later, Dan found me again. 250 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:48.399 This time he held an unfamiliar boomerang shaped bone. It 251 00:16:48.519 --> 00:16:51.440 was a head crest, we realized, but a strange one, 252 00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:57.039 projecting upward to agree degree never seen in predatory dinosaurs, 253 00:16:57.080 --> 00:17:00.519 and where the crest of an Egyptian spinosaurus is a ridge, 254 00:17:00.759 --> 00:17:04.119 this one was shaped like a scimitar. While the team 255 00:17:04.160 --> 00:17:10.359 excavated the skull, dan our Photogramma Gramma tree expert documented 256 00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:14.240 the emerging skeleton with digital photos, a much faster process 257 00:17:14.359 --> 00:17:18.200 than in my early career, when we'd have photographed a 258 00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:21.960 few Kissa fossils and I'd have stood over others doing 259 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:25.720 shaded drawings. That evening on a laptop in the tent, 260 00:17:25.799 --> 00:17:28.680 he presented us with a three D image made from 261 00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:31.960 the stitch together photos of the skull of our new 262 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:36.400 tall crested spinosaurus. The team was awestruck. It wasn't our 263 00:17:36.480 --> 00:17:40.960 last spectacular find at Janguebi. A few days later, an 264 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:44.119 eleven year old boy from a Taurang family camped nearby 265 00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:48.039 offered to show us fossils he'd seen while wandering with 266 00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:52.000 his goats, navigating complex terrain he knew by heart. He 267 00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:55.039 led us to sight after sight, some with little more 268 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:59.599 than a lonely bone fragment at the last sight, however, 269 00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:02.680 was an impressive set of bones and teeth. The latter's 270 00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:06.119 saber like shape left no doubt we had found Africa's 271 00:18:06.519 --> 00:18:12.599 first partial skeleton of a cocorad dondas suide. After cleaning 272 00:18:12.599 --> 00:18:15.440 an assembly, it will provide the first detailed look at 273 00:18:15.519 --> 00:18:20.920 Africa's line of these colossal predators. We returned to Agadez haggard, 274 00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:25.279 dirty and triumphant, with fossils, filling two forty foot containers 275 00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:29.640 on a truck scale. The results of our efforts weighed 276 00:18:29.680 --> 00:18:32.680 in at fifty five tons, twice what many of us 277 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:36.559 had estimated. I meanwhile, was thirty two pounds later. I 278 00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:40.759 was also elated leaving Nigier for Chicago and knowing that 279 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:44.039 in a matter of months our fossils would soon make 280 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:49.279 the same trip. Then one last hurdle arose suddenly and unexpectedly. 281 00:18:49.319 --> 00:18:52.799 A few months after our return, a military coup toppled 282 00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:56.599 the elected government of Nijier, putting this shipment of the 283 00:18:56.640 --> 00:19:00.759 fossils on hold for nearly two years. The fossils from 284 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:04.440 our expedition remained in Limbo. Then this spring I traveled 285 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:08.640 to Niame, Nizier's capital, where I signed an agreement that 286 00:19:08.680 --> 00:19:12.079 will at last bring the fossils to Chicago. It also 287 00:19:12.119 --> 00:19:16.880 provides for their staged repatriation, and it establishes a blueprint 288 00:19:16.960 --> 00:19:21.039 to develop two new Nigerian museums to house them, along 289 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:27.079 with an institute to train the country's next generation of musiologists, archaeologists, 290 00:19:27.079 --> 00:19:32.759 and palaeontologists. These initiatives will be overseen by Nizier Heritage, 291 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:37.680 a foundation I established in twenty sixteen. I first came 292 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:40.279 to Nigier for its fossils, for high adventure, and for 293 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.400 the stark beauty of its landscape and sunsets. But I've 294 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:46.880 returned again and again because of my deeper motivations as 295 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:50.160 a paleontologist, because I know that the significance of my 296 00:19:50.279 --> 00:19:54.240 work isn't ultimately measured in new species, but by the 297 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:57.440 impact those discoveries can have on the future of a nation. 298 00:19:58.200 --> 00:20:00.599 On the eve of our expedition, I had goaded my 299 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:03.559 young team members by telling them this would be their 300 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:07.559 chance to write a new chapter in Earth's history, something 301 00:20:07.640 --> 00:20:10.799 they'd have few opportunities to do in a lifetime. We 302 00:20:10.920 --> 00:20:14.079 now have troves of images, video and data from the field, 303 00:20:14.400 --> 00:20:17.960 and we have presented findings to conferences and journals, including 304 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:22.960 a paper on the remarkable tall crusted Spinosaurus species. Soon 305 00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:25.759 we will have the bones for close study, along with 306 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:29.319 geologic samples to reveal their age. Next will come an 307 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:35.599 outpouring of discoveries related to the Carcarondontosaurus, a dozen nusauropods, 308 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:40.160 a digging raptor, an armorless croc, a giant superfish, and 309 00:20:40.279 --> 00:20:43.640 other new species. We are poised to write that chapter 310 00:20:44.119 --> 00:20:48.200 introducing others to Africa's lost dinosaur worlds, daring them to 311 00:20:48.279 --> 00:20:52.960 imagine what still lies beneath the surface. Next, at work 312 00:20:53.039 --> 00:20:57.160 with the Gorilla Ballowness of South Korea by Paul Salapek, 313 00:20:57.920 --> 00:21:01.279 inside a covert operation to launch a ormous balloons carrying 314 00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:05.880 pantyhose and nature films at North Korea. Do you know 315 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.279 how to run fast? Asked a man I'll call Park. 316 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:11.799 He was driving us carefully through dusk, well below the 317 00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:16.160 speed limit from Soul toward the infamously militarized zone, the 318 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:20.240 heavily mined frontier between South and North Korea. It was 319 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:23.839 a warm summer evening, Park, a North Korean defector who 320 00:21:23.839 --> 00:21:26.880 allowed me to tag along provided he could use an 321 00:21:26.880 --> 00:21:30.039 assume name was keeping a wary eye on his rear 322 00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:35.519 real mirror for a police tail. The only vehicle shadowing us, thankful, Thankfully, 323 00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:39.319 was a nondescript pickup truck steered by one of Park's helpers. 324 00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.720 It was lugging under a blue tarp enough steel canisters 325 00:21:43.720 --> 00:21:47.160 of hydrogen to blow up a large house. Park's two 326 00:21:47.240 --> 00:21:50.960 vehicle convoy wasn't bound for some mission of terror, instead 327 00:21:51.079 --> 00:21:55.279 trundling past seven eleven convenience stores, rural churches topped with 328 00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:58.839 red neon crosses, and pig farms. He and his band 329 00:21:58.880 --> 00:22:02.680 of four activists we're on a bizarre mission of political resistance, 330 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:06.279 one that few, if any outside journalists had witnessed before. 331 00:22:06.759 --> 00:22:11.920 The clandestine lot clandestine lofting of huge hand made balloons 332 00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:15.920 into the night skies above North Korea. Over the past 333 00:22:15.960 --> 00:22:18.720 twelve years, I've hiked thousands of miles across the world 334 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:23.000 for a national geographic story telling project called the Out 335 00:22:23.079 --> 00:22:26.680 of Eden Walk. Typically, I spend my days peering down 336 00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:29.599 at my plotting feet to night, my attention would be 337 00:22:29.640 --> 00:22:33.480 focussed up on a group of improvised air strips airships 338 00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:38.400 floating north unfavorable summer winds carrying a payload of items 339 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:41.599 that are either subversive or in short supply in the 340 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:46.200 most shuddered society on Earth. The South Korean police might 341 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:49.319 pull us over. Park warned. If that happened, he advised 342 00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:52.119 with a wink, I should bolt into the scrub. I've 343 00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:54.759 been fined before, but I don't care, he said. People 344 00:22:54.759 --> 00:22:57.480 in the North don't even know what human rights are. 345 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:01.319 Our balloons help wake them up. Hours later, parked in 346 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:04.400 a weedy field near the d MZ, I watched as 347 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:09.039 the guerrilla aeronauts bustled about the dark in head lamps, 348 00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:13.599 cranking open the hydrogen cylinders to inflate their balloons. Gas 349 00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:17.000 jetted from the tank valves with a startlingly loud hiss. 350 00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:20.759 The airships, loaded with items like biblical tracks, U S 351 00:23:20.799 --> 00:23:25.799 dollar bills, pro democracy leaflets, rice, and women's hygiene products, 352 00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:30.559 did not resemble the colorful vessels at hot air balloon festivals. Rather, 353 00:23:30.680 --> 00:23:36.599 there they were elongated, clear plastic mammoths, enlarging two heights 354 00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:40.640 of four or five stories tall. Soon, twenty five balloons 355 00:23:40.759 --> 00:23:44.920 jutted into the moonlit sky like monumental exclamation points that 356 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.319 were surely visible for a mile. Perhaps I remember the 357 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:53.039 media reports from South Korea. Last summer, thousands of large 358 00:23:53.079 --> 00:23:58.599 balloons hauling plastic sacks bulging with cigarette butts, rotting clothes, worms, 359 00:23:58.599 --> 00:24:02.119 and even feces floated from North Korea into the air 360 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:07.000 space of democratic South Korea. This barrage of garbage triggered 361 00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:11.640 health alert's fires and aborted flights at airports. One bag 362 00:24:11.680 --> 00:24:15.759 of gunk landed near the South Korean President's office in Seoul. 363 00:24:16.440 --> 00:24:19.880 The press often covered this armada of inflatables with a smirk, 364 00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:23.400 as a side show to an ongoing rivalry between sister 365 00:24:23.559 --> 00:24:27.839 nations that remained bitter enemies seventy two years after Korea's 366 00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:31.440 Civil war was paused by a cease fire. Yet the 367 00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:34.240 public rarely heard the other half of the story, the 368 00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:39.160 North Korean rubbish attacks or payback for South Korea propaganda 369 00:24:39.200 --> 00:24:43.079 balloons like parks. The geopolitics of this tit for tat 370 00:24:43.160 --> 00:24:47.559 aerial dispute, however, wasn't nearly as illuminating to me as 371 00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:51.559 the earnest motivations of the South Korean activists, many of 372 00:24:51.599 --> 00:24:55.079 whom are in fact North Korean defectors. The teams of 373 00:24:55.079 --> 00:24:58.960 balloonists appeared driven by a marooned sword of longing for 374 00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:05.079 all they've left irrevocably behind, abandoned loved ones, landscapes of memory, youth. 375 00:25:05.759 --> 00:25:08.599 When it comes to the finality of exile, North Koreans 376 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:12.039 rank in a bleique class of their own. Among some 377 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:15.680 thirty four thousand defectors in South Korea, barely a few 378 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:19.119 dozen are known to have voluntarily returned to the brutal 379 00:25:19.240 --> 00:25:23.559 clutches of their police state. In this way, the strange 380 00:25:23.559 --> 00:25:27.119 balloon War resembles texts exchanged between a couple in a 381 00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:31.400 toxic relationship, with one partner appealing for connection while the 382 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:35.960 other replies with trash talk. The exchanges carry added poignancy, 383 00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:41.359 since reunification of the two countries seems more implausible than 384 00:25:41.359 --> 00:25:45.000 ever to day, fewer and fewer young South Koreans support it, 385 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:49.440 while North Korea has pivoted decisively away. My family is 386 00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:52.680 very lucky, very grateful to be free, said Park, twenty eight, 387 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:56.880 who grew up in North Korea, listening to Western radio broadcasts, 388 00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:00.319 muffled under a blanket in his bed, a thought, I'm 389 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:04.039 punishable by prison. We are not just living life for 390 00:26:04.079 --> 00:26:06.599 ourselves now, but for the people back in North Korea. 391 00:26:07.400 --> 00:26:11.799 Energetic and wyree Park recounted in confidence his perilous escape 392 00:26:11.799 --> 00:26:15.559 from North Korea with four relatives more than a decade ago. 393 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:20.480 Now a youth organizer for an evangelical church outside of Seoul, 394 00:26:20.599 --> 00:26:25.240 he explained how fellow Christians in North Korea risked execution 395 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:28.559 for practicing their faith under the cult like rule of 396 00:26:28.599 --> 00:26:32.559 Supreme leader Kim Jong un. He also bemoaned the sinister 397 00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:36.480 reach of North Korea's intelligence agencies, which had poisoned the 398 00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:41.240 dictator's own brother in exile in Malaysia. Arriving as a 399 00:26:41.279 --> 00:26:45.720 teenager in Go Go, South Korea from repressive North Korea, 400 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:49.240 Park recalled had felt like being a person from the 401 00:26:49.319 --> 00:26:54.519