Gobi Desert: A Mystery Unraveled

   Doubts about the existence of prehistoric animals like dinosaurs have been boggling the minds of paleontologists until the expedition of Roy Chapman Andrews and his team stopped the music. An explorer at heart, Chapman led his team on an expedition to the magnificently rich sites of the Gobi in Central Asia’s Mongolia where they unearthed the first ever nest of the fossilized dinosaur eggs. Since then uncertainties about dinosaurs roaming the earth million years ago banished. However, another issue about these prehistoric animals arose when another group of scientists discovered a complete skeleton of protoceratops, eggs of oviraptors, claws of velociraptor and early mammals in the sandy terrain of Ukhaa Tolgod (Brown Hills) in the Gobi Desert.

It was in 1993, when a team of paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History and Mongolian Academy of Sciences re-explored the grandeurs of the Gobi Desert. After 60 years since Roy Chapman Andrews found the first unequivocal evidence of the existence of the dinosaurs, another group of scientists went back to the Gobi Desert and uncovered another traces of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that roamed the earth before the existence of human beings. Together with the unearthing of these Cretaceous fossils was the rise of the mystery of the cause of the death of these hapless animals.

The extraordinary quality of the preservation of these animals under the sands of the Gobi Desert for million years showed that the creatures at Ukhaa Tolgod were killed instantaneously by cataclysmic incident that buried their remains before they were foraged by the elements. At first, the scientists thought that the mammoth sandstorms buried the dinosaurs alive, but later studies conducted by some geologists revealed that the cause of death was “sand slide” or debris flow, in which a substantial quantity of wet sand, flowed down the side of a dune; hence, burying everything in its path, in an avalanche of debris.

Doubts about the existence of prehistoric animals like dinosaurs have been boggling the minds of paleontologists until the expedition of Roy Chapman Andrews and his team stopped the music. An explorer at heart, Chapman led his team on an expedition to the magnificently rich sites of the Gobi in Central Asia’s Mongolia where they unearthed the first ever nest of the fossilized dinosaur eggs. Since then uncertainties about dinosaurs roaming the earth million years ago banished. However, another issue about these prehistoric animals arose when another group of scientists discovered a complete skeleton of protoceratops, eggs of oviraptors, claws of velociraptor and early mammals in the sandy terrain of Ukhaa Tolgod (Brown Hills) in the Gobi Desert.

It was in 1993, when a team of paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History and Mongolian Academy of Sciences re-explored the grandeurs of the Gobi Desert. After 60 years since Roy Chapman Andrews found the first unequivocal evidence of the existence of the dinosaurs, another group of scientists went back to the Gobi Desert and uncovered another traces of dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that roamed the earth before the existence of human beings. Together with the unearthing of these Cretaceous fossils was the rise of the mystery of the cause of the death of these hapless animals.

The extraordinary quality of the preservation of these animals under the sands of the Gobi Desert for million years showed that the creatures at Ukhaa Tolgod were killed instantaneously by cataclysmic incident that buried their remains before they were foraged by the elements. At first, the scientists thought that the mammoth sandstorms buried the dinosaurs alive, but later studies conducted by some geologists revealed that the cause of death was “sand slide” or debris flow, in which a substantial quantity of wet sand, flowed down the side of a dune; hence, burying everything in its path, in an avalanche of debris.

The mysterious death of the ancient creatures was unraveled after the team found out that there were three different types of sandstones in the area. Each of this sandstone exposed a distinct part of the mystery. One type exposes finely chiseled bedding that inclines at twenty-five degrees angle and is filed by particle size. The structure did not show any remains of animals; however, the potholed layers of sandstone betrayed the first fossilized footprints of dinosaurs ever found in the Gobi Desert.

The second type of sandstone was just like the first type minus its well-defined structure. It was on the second type that indication that dinosaurs trod on these sandstones as the burrow marks left by insects and other minuscule creatures were partly squashed, in which the upper burrows were crushed and the lower ones were left intact. However, the paths made by the dinosaurs were not conserved because of the absence of well-defined bedding in the sandstone.

The third type of sandstone is where the paleontologists found hundreds of Cretaceous fossils. Unlike the other two types of sandstones, this did not show any structured, layered sheets of sand at all, and pebbles and cobbles, which are too large to be carried by wind, were deposited in these sandstones, as well; thus, the researchers ruled out the idea of sandstorm as the cause of the death of the ancient animals in Ukhaa Tolgod. The team reviewed a paper on travel literature of Central Asia and Arabia for records of any present accounts of animals entombed alive in the sandstorms so that they can substantiate their conclusion. Yet, the paper did not contain records of such incidents. With no intention to come to a full stop, one of the researchers, Dr.Loope with his horse sense, anchored his proof on the interesting stories of the residents of Nebraska Sandhills about a pick-up truck that was partially buried by sand flows caused by a heavy rainstorm, and a barn that was built on a dune slope was half filled by a flow. Incorporating the phenomenon on sudden debris flow brought about by sand dunes drenched in heavy rains into their previous findings in the third type of sandstone, the team had closed the final curtain surrounding the mystery of the extraordinary quality of the preservation of the animals at Ukhaa Tolgod. 

The “sand slides” in the Gobi Desert could have trammeled the dinosaurs and other animals that were in the course of the debris; hence; burying them alive until they were unearthed by the paleontologists.

All of these discoveries about the primitive animals wouldn’t have been possible without Roy Chapman Andrews as the brains behind the expedition to the rich vast land of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

The mysterious death of the ancient creatures was unraveled after the team found out that there were three different types of sandstones in the area. Each of this sandstone exposed a distinct part of the mystery. One type exposes finely chiseled bedding that inclines at twenty-five degrees angle and is filed by particle size. The structure did not show any remains of animals; however, the potholed layers of sandstone betrayed the first fossilized footprints of dinosaurs ever found in the Gobi Desert.

The second type of sandstone was just like the first type minus its well-defined structure. It was on the second type that indication that dinosaurs trod on these sandstones as the burrow marks left by insects and other minuscule creatures were partly squashed, in which the upper burrows were crushed and the lower ones were left intact. However, the paths made by the dinosaurs were not conserved because of the absence of well-defined bedding in the sandstone.

The third type of sandstone is where the paleontologists found hundreds of Cretaceous fossils. Unlike the other two types of sandstones, this did not show any structured, layered sheets of sand at all, and pebbles and cobbles, which are too large to be carried by wind, were deposited in these sandstones, as well; thus, the researchers ruled out the idea of sandstorm as the cause of the death of the ancient animals in Ukhaa Tolgod. The team reviewed a paper on travel literature of Central Asia and Arabia for records of any present accounts of animals entombed alive in the sandstorms so that they can substantiate their conclusion. Yet, the paper did not contain records of such incidents. With no intention to come to a full stop, one of the researchers, Dr.Loope with his horse sense, anchored his proof on the interesting stories of the residents of Nebraska Sandhills about a pick-up truck that was partially buried by sand flows caused by a heavy rainstorm, and a barn that was built on a dune slope was half filled by a flow. Incorporating the phenomenon on sudden debris flow brought about by sand dunes drenched in heavy rains into their previous findings in the third type of sandstone, the team had closed the final curtain surrounding the mystery of the extraordinary quality of the preservation of the animals at Ukhaa Tolgod.
The “sand slides” in the Gobi Desert could have trammeled the dinosaurs and other animals that were in the course of the debris; hence; burying them alive until they were unearthed by the paleontologists.

All of these discoveries about the primitive animals wouldn’t have been possible without Roy Chapman Andrews as the brains behind the expedition to the rich vast land of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.