Mongolian expedition 1946-1949

Since time immemorial the arats, the native dwellers of Mongolia, have known about many places with huge stone bones. They believed they were remains of terrible dragons. The first time Mongolia was discovered as a paleontological Mecca was by the expedition of the American Museum of Natural History at the early 1920s. During three seasons of intensive excavations, this expedition, headed by Roy Chapman Andrews and W.Granger, collected a splendid set of fossils, including several new forms of dinosaurs.

In 1946 the Mongolian Expedition of the Paleontological Institute started. It was originally planned for the beginning of the 40-ties, but the World War destroyed the initial plan. The expedition was headed by Ivan A. Efremov.

In 1946 the field work lasted for about two months. The works were mainly aimed at the prospecting of the fossiliferous localities in the southern and eastern parts of the Gobi Desert. In the autumn of 1947 the base camps were organized, equipment, provision and gasoline were delivered. In the spring of 1948 the expedition, that exceeded 30 people headed for Mongolia.

The half-a-year work included excavations in all the localities found in 1946. In 1949 the excavations of the already known and most promising localities containing rich bonebeds of the extinct animals proceeded. During digging out much attention was paid to the burial conditions in the particular sites, this served as an important source of information for the development of a young branch of paleontology - taphonomy.

The skeletons of dinosaurs and early mammals were extracted as huge, up to 2-3 tons, rock blocks and transported to Moscow for fine preparation.

The expedition tracked about 40,000 km, more than 100 tons of materials were excavated, including the remains of dinosaurs, Cenozoic mammals and other vertebrates.

During their stay in Mongolia the workers of the expedition helped to organize the Paleontological Department of the State Museum of the Mongolian People's Republic.