A village tugged deep inside a canyon

While Gary, Jack and Li Qiang's team is busy excavating their quarry (see previous posts), the rest of the team led by Xiaoming is roaming the country side to find additional fossil sites. We stumbled upon a new road that lead to a canyon previously inaccessible. At the end of this road is a beautiful little village (named Duoxiang) next to a most lush patch of pasture in this part of the country. A lovely little pagoda stands at the foothill (photo) as well as some ancient ruins nearby. Unfortunately, we did not find any fossils in this canyon, but no regrets for such a lovely day.
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Days of our lives in the quarry

12 August 2010. The most awesome quarry in Tibet (the one and only)

The excavation crew (Qiang Li, Juan Liu, Fuqiao Shi, Gary Takeuchi, and Zhijie Jack Tseng) spent (so far) five working days in the quarry. We have recorded 100 specimens extracted in place so far, with more to excavate in the coming days.

This quarry is probably the first and most significant of its kind in Tibet to date; the fauna collected from a 6 by 6 feet hole in the ground so far composes 14 different vertebrate animals (six of which are brand new to the region). Among them are a bird, three kinds of rabbits, a zokor, a felid (an adult and a juvenile), etc.

We are simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of specimens in such a small areas; Gary is getting flashbacks of his days in the La Brea pits.

A few photos of our work area!
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Main street, breakfast

10 August 2010. Zhada, Tibet

We are authorized to continue our fieldwork. A slow morning with partly cloudy skies awaits us.

More excavation today; gotta get those 11 jaws outta there!
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