Trip to Inner Mongolia

12 May 2009. IVPP, Beijing

A small crew of five people will leave tomorrow for Inner Mongolia. We will visit a few of the small mammal localities near the towns of Xilinhot and Sunite Zuoqi, and explore a few new sites along the way.

One of the goals of this trip is also to test out our new jackhammer at our excavation site in Baogeda Ula. We will also visit the adjacent towns to secure supplies of burlap and plaster powder which we will need to jacket large chunks of fossil-embedded rocks during our June excavation.

[Map showing the major towns (large circles) and fossil locality areas (small circles) in central Inner Mongolia, north of Beijing. Tunggur is the classic middle Miocene locality discovered by the Central Asiatic Expeditions; Dahongshan is a small mammal-rich locality with good early Miocene representation; Baogeda Ula is the late Miocene locality with new bone beds to be excavated next month.]

Stay tuned for news from our first field trip of the 2009 season!

~Jack and Li Qiang

What is this? II

29 April 2009. IVPP, Beijing

I have moved on from bovids (antelopes, gazelles, goats, etc.) to a new group of mammals to study from the Tsaidam Basin. What might this be a photo of?



Hint: this is probably late Miocene in geologic age (see timescale on the right column of this page).

~Jack

New equipment added to 2009 expedition

9 April 2009. IVPP, Beijing

What could be more fun than going shopping in the tool store?

A few of our 2009 Inner Mongolia team members drove to the outskirt of Beijing yesterday to look at generators and jackhammers. We wanted to buy some power tools to help us open up the quarries IM0703 and IM0704.

We ended up buying a 16.5 kg jackhammer along with a 2000-watt generator. This also means we will be able to power electric stoves, water pumps, and other luxuries we did not have before.

Yay for technology!

~Jack