Huren Dukh is arid area, but not a plantless world. The terrain is sparsely covered with grass which seemed to support shepherds' life. During the excavation, we stayed in gers, dome-shaped Mongolian mobile house. In front of our camping site, vast plain was out there, nothing obstructed the view of far horizon, and night sky was full of stars! I really enjoyed those things as well as a digging which was highlight of this tour. However, my excavation by the last day was not fruitfull. All I found were some (dino?) bone fragments, which might be a big news if they were found in Japan, but such finding was too usual here to be considered seldom and valuable. As whole remains of ancient animals (dinos, turtles, non-dino thecodonts, etc.) are often unearthed around here, Mongolian staff seemed to be less interested in such bone fragments disarticulated and swept away from its owner. For those who made an interesting finding, honor was a small stick with a tag on which his/her name was written (it was stuck aside of the found fossil as a mark). We all worked hard to leave one's own name in Mongolian plain, however, two out of three days passed without anything special found.

Although we heard that the previous groups (total 7 groups were organized and participated in this digging tour) found tagged-remains of Psittacosaurs or Iguanodon, still no significant finding had been made by our group by the last day of the digging.
"If I could not find anything today, what am I here for? This is the last chance for me to find something." I believe I'm not the only one who thought like this.
We started digging in the afternoon at the slope right in front of the camping area.

We heard that this is the place where nobody in the previous groups looked around. After a brief explanation about typical layers which produce fossils, everyone started to walk around for a great finding. Soon I found a bone on the ground. It looked like a small humerus.

I was delighted, because it was my second time finding of a fossil which could make me feel a "real bone". It was found in a groove (water-cut channel) which was eroded by rain flows. It was suspected that the bone I found was recently scooped out by erosion and flushed away from upstream. So I started to look around 1-2 meter upstream from the point where the bone was found.

However, I could not find anything but the grass and the stones.
I quitted once, and moved to another groove, but something made me change my mind to pull me back to the channel again. Afterwards, I found some fragmented bones at 5 meter upstream in a shallow water-cut channel, where the groove invaded by rain drops was shallow. This fossil is the bone which was torn in straight direction just like torn bone of birds, and we could see a lot of similar pieces when searching with creeping. It was a model case where we can find a lot of things if we stare creeping on the ground.

These bones sheared lengthwise in similar fashion to a fragmented bird bone. Such bones could be easily found around here if one looked more carefully getting on their hands and knees. This is the adequate way in Gobi to find more fossils than you expected. While I was gathering fragmented bones, I found a unique bone which looked like a joint. At first, I thought it was a part of vertebra of extant sheep often seen anywhere in this country, because it seemed too beautiful and perfect for a fossilized bone. But, when I got it examined by the staff, they pointed out that it was the phalange of hind limb of ostrich-mimics, such as Harpymimus, so it was a big surprise!
The staff admired the bone, saying "It is a nice, perfect bone. You'd better dig around where you found this" told me the staff, and then the bone slipped into his pocket... (but he did not show the least interest to the rest of bone fragments, which were most abundant --- quality matters more than quantity!)

As instructed, I looked around the area of approx. 6 x 6 meter, then found more bone fragments. I imagined myself as an excellent young paleontologist who successfully puts these fragments together like a jigsaw puzzle...
As I picked most of pieces, I stopped searching on the ground, then started digging a little.

First, I got rid of top layer of soft sandstone which seemed to be formed by recent weathering, then, a brownish, a bit harder layer appeared 1 centimeter beneath the surface ground, which may be due to recent weathering, on the ground by a shovel. Although I exposed the brownish layer for several hundred square centimeter, nothing was found.
As the work described above was often hindered by well-rooted grass, I decided to pluck those grass out of the ground to expose more wider area.

->2. The Digging 09/01/1996