Mongolians learn about dinosaurs
Mongolians learn about dinosaursв
Mongolians learn about dinosaurs. Bolortsetseg Minjin inherited fascination for dinosaurs from her father, a paleontologist, eventually becoming one of the few Mongolian women to earn a Ph.D. in paleontology. Now Bolor is encouraging a new generation of homegrown fossil hunters with the planned launch of several regional dinosaur museums. Mongolian Gobi desert is the world’s richest fossil area, overlying vast lakes and rivers that were a prehistoric paradise for plant life and dinosaurs. After receiving her doctorate from the City University of New York in 2007, Bolor established the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs in Ulaanbaatar. When she learned that the American Museum of Natural History was willing to donate a mobile dinosaur museum used in metropolitan New York City, she raised $30,000 through an Indiegogo campaign and private donations to cover shipping costs to Mongolia. The retrofitted, 10-year-old recreational vehicle began outreach programs to nomadic tribes in the Gobi and towns in western Mongolia past summer. The bus recently left Ulaanbaatar for a month-long tour of the Gobi and western Mongolia. While educating future generations of potential paleontologists and encouraging tourism, Bolor hopes the museums will also inspire local communities to combat fossil poaching and black market sales, a decades-old problem.
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