Paleontologist Sereno earns award named for early dinosaur explorer

[Janet m vandenburgh <van02@cox.net>]

http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/090108/sereno.shtml
Paleontologist Sereno earns award named for early dinosaur explorer 
By Steve Koppes 
skoppes@uchicago.edu
News Office 
  

Photo by Mike Hettwer, courtesy of Project Exploration

Professor Paul Sereno (in background), who also is a National Geographic
Explorer-in-Residence, and archaeologist Elena Garcea excavate adjacent
burials at Gobero, the largest graveyard discovered to date in the Sahara.
Two seasons of excavation supported by the National Geographic Society
revealed some 200 graves.
 
 
Roy Chapman Andrews of the American Museum of Natural History led a 1922
expedition to Mongolia?s Gobi Desert to look for fossils of human ancestors.
Instead he discovered several new species of dinosaurs and a fossilized nest
of dinosaur eggs in what would become one of the most famous expeditions of
the century.

Paul Sereno did Andrews one better. Sereno, Professor in Organismal Biology
& Anatomy, led an expedition to Africa?s Sahara Desert in 2000 to look for
dinosaurs. But in addition to many new species of dinosaur and extinct
crocodilians, Sereno?s expedition also turned up a vast graveyard of human
fossils.

Now Sereno is slated to receive the seventh annual Roy Chapman Andrews
Society Distinguished Explorer Award on Thursday, Jan. 22 at Beloit College
in Wisconsin.

Andrews (1884-1960) was a native of Beloit. Previous recipients of the award
include Robert Ballard, discoverer of the RMS Titanic; and Steve Squyres,
lead scientist of the Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Said Sereno: ?I see paleontology as ?adventure with a purpose.? How else to
describe a science ...








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