AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
Travel SOCIETY SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONJoin us on a thrilling adventure in the Central Asian wilderness
to hunt for fossils with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.
STORY A ND PHOTOGR A PH Y BY JOHN PICKR ELL
112 Australian GeographicAY HAD TURNED to night, despite the sun
being high in the sky, and I braced myself
against winds, the like of which I had never
experienced before. One of the Gobi Desert’s
legendary sandstorms had arrived, disturbing
the day’s fossil-hunting activities. Sheets of
sand and dust pounded against us as we packed up our
gear and retreated to our parked convoy of 4WDs. Such
dust storms are not altogether surprising in the Gobi, and
we were well prepared. I was covered up with long sleeves,
a beanie and cargo pants, and my eyes were protected by
both wrap-around sunnies and a pair of goggles. A bandanna
tied across my nose and mouth helped keep the dust out.
The Gobi Desert is a starkly beautiful region, rich in
mysteries and legends. Covering 1.3 million squarekilometres of southern Mongolia and the Chinese province
of Inner Mongolia, it stretches south from the Siberian
wilderness to the Tibetan Plateau. Conditions are not
always ideal, but the thrilling experience of a sandstorm
only added to the excitement of this adventure for me and
a small and enthusiastic crew of Australian volunteers.
We were there to prospect for and collect dinosaurs
for the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS) on a
fossil-dig expedition that was a collaboration between the
academy, Odyssey Travel and the Australian Geographic
Society. This April 2015 dig was on a small scale – with
just a handful of paying participants – and was a recce for
a much larger expedition, which will take place in Sep-
tember 2016 with 15 AG readers. I led the dig along with
Dr Tsogtbaatar Khishigjav, renowned dinosaur hunterD