Book Reviews
HGS Bulletin, April, 2005
Novacek, M., 2002, Time Traveler, In Search of Dinosaurs and Ancient Mammals from Montana to Mongolia, 365 pp., Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, $26.00.
Depictions of time travel are often found in the realm of science fiction. As an example, consider H.G. Wells classic story of time travel in the “Time Machine” and other similar works. Michael Novacek’s book is appropriately titled because in a sense time travel is possible in the field of geoscience. This book is partly autobiographical, travelogue, and natural history, combining elements of all three into enjoyable reading material. It is also entertaining to non-geoscientists because it offers insight into the driving forces to be a geoscientist and to illuminate what motivates “rock-hounds.”
Novacek is currently curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The book focuses on the events that led to his career as a vertebrate paleontologist and to his adventures in the field searching for dinosaurs, mammals and extinct animals. (Novacek is also the author of Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs in 1996. This book was listed by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year.)
Novacek begins his paleontological field work in the western United States and in Mexico. During fieldwork in Baja California, there is a meeting with a cowboy “with dirty sheepskin chaps” in an adobe tavern, armed with a holster that “opened around the sweat-polished ivory handle of a pistol” (quotes from the book). The crew was able to desert the bar quickly without incident as a result of crafty handling of the encounter.
Novacek’s position at the AMNH put him in a uniquely fortuitous position for fossil collecting. In an unusual series of events, as the book describes, in the mid-1980’s, a veterinarian from Chile was delayed for several hours at JFK Airport in New York during an intercontinental flight. The time allowed the veterinarian to visit Novacek at the AMNH and to present photographs of fossil whale vertebrae collected in the Andes Mountains. Novacek organized a field expedition to Chile in the hopes of finding additional fossils that would increase understanding of the geological and biological history of South America. This sparked the planning and execution of the Andean Paleontological Expedition.
The expedition to the Andes included several colleagues from various universities and the AMNH. There is a detailed tale of the trip to the Lomas Las Tetas de Cabra (Hills of the Goats Teats). The purpose of this expedition was to search for vertebrate fossils. Some were found, namely, animals closely related to deer and antelope (Meniscotherium), typical of Eocene faunas of North America, and a primitive horse (Hyracotherium). We are given detailed glimpses into what it is like to perform fieldwork as a paleontologist. During the 1986 Andean Paleontological Expedition as Novacek dismounted from a horse, he “swung the right leg over the flanks of the horse, but my left foot was trapped in the open stirrup.” The horse started bucking and dragged Novacek over a clearing “which was studded with sharp-edged rocks.” The result was serious injury to his head and legs. The work involves “shivering in a snowstorm for a half-hour while the guides debated options for escape…..we started east on an uncharted route; Crus rode attentively back and forth, reminding us to keep a very tight grip on the reins. My legs were throbbing in pain” (quoted from the book). The terrain and mountains around Chile had “summits that seemed unassailable and the forests below them impenetrable, yet in the middle of this wilderness was the best fossil locality for land vertebrates yet found in Chile.”
An expedition to Yemen in the late 1980’s to investigate localities for fossil was disappointingly unsuccessful. Novacek describes the scenery in Yemen as beautiful with enchanting architecture. However, the geology of Yemen was not enchanting regarding paleontology. The expedition encountered Yemeni soldiers with AK-47s suspicious of the exhibition members, as well as several dangerous situations, sometimes being detained at gunpoint. Sentry and inspection posts seemed to pop-up overnight on the roads and hampered the efforts of the expedition.
Perhaps one of the most famous fossil explorers of the twentieth century is Roy Chapman Andrews, discoverer of spectacular fossils (photographs of some have become icons in popular culture) in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Andrews was a floor sweeper in the AMNH until he led a series of expeditions in the 1920’s to Mongolia in search of fossil evidence of early humans. Near a mountain range known as the Gurvan Saichan the expedition found plentiful vertebrates remains in an area known in the western world as the Flaming Cliffs. Novacek describes seeing the Flaming Cliffs for the first time. It felt very natural to be at the foot of these spectacular outcrops where the Andrews expedition had uncovered the fabulous vertebrate fossils during the Central Asiatic Expeditions of the 1920’s. These cliffs “were familiar; they felt like home” and, as readers, we can appreciate how it must have been to stand at the base of these famous, prodigiously productive fossil cliffs.
The book also discusses the Cretaceous vertebrate fossils discovered at a place named Ukhaa Tolgod (“Brown Hills”) in Mongolia. The AMNH Asiatic Expeditions of the 1990’s discovered spectacular vertebrate fossil specimens in numbers that exceeded more than in all the Gobi upper Cretaceous localities combined. These remains included abundant well-preserved theropods, lizards, and mammals in exquisite states of preservation. Perhaps the most evocative fossils were those of Oviraptor embryos inside the shell, as well as a nesting oviraptorid. It was originally, but mistakenly, thought that Oviraptor was raiding the eggs that were thought to be Protoceratops eggs. A possible explanation for the abundance and extraordinarily fine quality of preservation of these fossils in the Gobi Desert is presented in the book. It is suggested that at various intervals, storms caused mudflows and mud avalanches off the high desert sand dunes into gullies where the dinosaurs lived, nested, and were buried.
There are many illustrations of fossil vertebrates strategically placed throughout the book. As a nod to the educated lay reader, there are also detailed explanations of geological and paleontological concepts. Novacek lays the groundwork for his explorations by explaining the natural events that occurred over a period of hundreds of millions of years to create the present day setting in which the fossils are b