Xu Xing, co-leader of the Xinjiang expedition, made his name on the feathered dinosaurs of Liaoning, but he's now searching for their origins in older sediments of the relatively unexplored far west of China. Photo courtesy of Jim Clark

China has been known for its fossil treasures for centuries. Yet, until the 20th century, the bones of ancient creatures were ground into powder for traditional medicine. Some of these fossils were thought to be dragons, and thus the medicine, whether mammal or dinosaur, was called “dragon bone.” Today the Chinese celebrate their fossil heritage not by eating it, but by studying it carefully and putting it on public display. Some towns are so famous for their fossils that huge statues of dinosaurs decorate their streets and town centers. Regional natural history museums are popping up everywhere. The transformation of Chinese attitude toward its fossil heritage in the last twenty years has been no less startling than the transformation of its cities, lifestyles, and economy (see NGM May 2008).

Dinosaur-related press coverage in the 1990s was punctuated, even dominated, by discoveries from Liaoning Province, an area now famous for feathered dinosaurs. In this month’s issue of National Geographic, you can read about a new region that is bursting onto the paleontology scene—Xinjiang Province. Well, let’s qualify that. It is not a really a “new” region because paleontologists have long known it to be rich in Mesozoic fossils. Expeditions had been there as early as the 1920s. A famous Chinese-Canadian expedition was there in the 1980s. Knowing the potential of the area, others, including NGS grantees Luis Chiappe, Paul Sereno, and Thomas Martin have been there since.

Our July magazine story features Jim Clark and Cathy Forster of George Washington University and Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology who launched a multi-year project in the Junggar basin. The Junggar basin, they knew, had rocks of Middle Jurassic age (the Jurassic is the middle period of the three periods of the Mesozoic era). Rocks of this age are rare, at least on land, so we have a big hole in our understanding of Middle Jurassic dinosaur species. They were particularly interested in finding the fossils of small theropods. These would hopefully provide more information about the origin of birds (Archaeopteryx, the earliest known bird, appears in the fossil record at around 150 million years ago, just after the Middle Jurassic).

I had the pleasure of participating in the Xinjiang expedition twice. I had an interest in finding primordial dino-bird fossils as well as a curiosity about Xinjiang.

Before I went there, I thought Xinjiang would be about as desolate a place as anywhere on Earth. After all, this is the home of the impenetrable Taklamakan desert, the Turfan depression (the lowest elevation on Earth after the Dead Sea), the Xinjiang mummies, and China’s nuclear testing ground. When I landed at the provincial capital of Urumqi (pronounced oo-roo-moo-chee), I was very surprised to find no tumbleweed, but shiny Toyota land cruisers, skyscrapers, and millions of people instead. The discovery of rich oil deposits, plus China’s policy of encouraging immigration to the province, had created a boom town.

Half a day’s drive from Urumqi, in the Junggar Basin, I found the Xinjiang I expected. Base camp was in the middle of a dry valley surrounded by equally dry mountains on three sides. It was reminiscent of the American Southwest, and some parts were as beautiful as the painted deserts there. There were no people there other than the expedition team.

Each morning we would eat breakfast and head off in different directions to look for fossils emerging from sediments. Many of the Chinese crew were technicians who were deployed assisting in extracting  huge blocks of fossils containing many specimens. It would take days with jackhammers and chisels to free the blocks and many men to roll the blocks onto trucks. Their work was quite dangerous.

Fossils were everywhere in this basin. We were tripping over bits of tritylodonts, a mammal-like reptile, and turtles. There were many sauropods as well, but their bones were most often found shattered. I spent my time wandering far from camp, looking for what I hoped would be an important specimen. I did not find any early birds, nor did anyone else, but I did find an important ancestor of crocs (which Clark and Xu unexpectedly named after me—Junggarsuchus sloani!) and a very early pterosaur.

Others on the expedition have found an incredible array of important Jurassic fossils, filling some important gaps in our understanding of what certain dinosaur groups looked like before the Cretaceous period have been filled. Those darn Jurassic dino-birds, however, remain to be found.

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