T13 – Dinosaurs

1. Mongolia has some rich deposits of dinosaur bones, especially in the Gobi Desert.

2. Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert has a bunch. This is where the first dinosaur eggs were found.

3. The guy who named the area Flaming Cliffs (Roy Chapman Andrews) must not have been to Southern Utah, because if you’ve seen one, the others aren’t all that impressive.

4. Mongolians consider dinosaur bones a part of their national heritage. Unluckily, some people who don’t agree have a tendency to walk off with bones.

5. Apparently USA courts agree with Mongolia. When the president of Mongolia went after people who had smuggled out a Tarbosaurus bataar, it became a rallying point for him. He had a building put up on the edge of Ulaanbaatar’s central square to house the articulated skeleton.

6. The New Yorker mad the auction in which the Tarbosaurus Bataar sold sound pretty exciting. Someone actually bid a million bucks for it.

7. There are a few glass cases with other bones in the same building, but outside of the Tarbosaurus bataar the most prominent thing is the series of poster-sized plaques talking about how much work the president went through to get it back.

8. Tarbosaurs bataar is the Mongolian equivalent of a T-rex. (Like you hadn’t already noticed.)

9. I found Dinosaur bones in two other museums, but only in one or two rooms each. They did not appear to be major draws.

10. We walked through Flaming Cliffs area. Supposedly there was a chance we might have discovered some fossils. Mostly I found camel, goat, dog, lizard, and human footprints. With so much traffic, I seriously doubt I’d have found anything.

11. The guide expected us to take about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to walk from where the vans dropped us off to the top of the cliffs where they were to pick us up. It took me 20 minutes. I wanted to get out of the sun.

12. I did not get sun poisoning on this trip! I didn’t even peel. I credit my hat and several long-sleeve shirts. And a lack of snorkeling. Oh, wait. This is supposed to be about dinosaurs. Um… in the museum in Dalanzadgad there is a long, thin room barely large enough for a dozen people in which there is a glass case full of dinosaur eggs. I did not get a picture, and I’m kicking myself for it. You’d think with 6,000 pix I’d get one of a dinosaur egg, but noooo.

13. Tarbosaurs bataar and eggs are not the only fossil remains in Mongolia. Not by a long shot. But they are the only two I remember. The Mongolian University of Science and Technology has a school of Geology and Petroleum Engineering, but not one of paleontology.