From the Green Sahara story published in the current ( September ) issue of natgeo Magazine: On an expedition to Niger, paleontologist Paul Sereno paulserenoofficial and fossil preparator Erin Fitzgerald visited Africa’s richest “microsite”—a rare place in the fossil record that contains a concentration of small bones and teeth. Located in the middle of a 100-mile, fossil-rich stretch in the hyperarid Ténéré Desert called Gadoufaoua, the site holds the key to discovering many new creatures, from fish to flying reptiles to small dinosaurs. Photo 1. Fitzgerald (at left) and Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer, use a whirling diamond-studded blade cooled with water to cut through the 110-million-year-old rock layer. They were collecting rock slabs to take back to Sereno’s fossil lab at the University of Chicago. Photo 2. Clutching the first bone-packed slab from the microsite, Sereno was elated that he was able to chisel it out, as he imagined all of the creatures he could only glimp...