Frankie Jackson is a dinosaur egg specialist from Montana State University in Bozeman, where she also teaches Vertebrate Paleontology. She has also participated in several expeditions to Auca Mahuevo and conducted extensive field work at Jack Horner's dinosaur nesting site in Montana called Egg Mountain.

From the plane, the white sand seas of the Gobi stretched to the far horizon with only scattered rocky outcrops breaking the stark landscape in the late afternoon sun. After days of doubt and delay, the expedition was finally becoming reality. Ahead of us lay the vast, largely unexplored reaches of the Junggar Basin, the second largest desert of China. The last major expedition to the region was 37 years ago, when the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing explored the region for several field seasons. Dinosaurs from the Junggar, however, remain poorly known, and our work offered an opportunity to fill a few gaps in the fossil record.

Our first day in the field found us south of Urho on a road winding past fields of sunflowers and melons, drab clay brick houses, and corn patches. Men walked the road carrying long scythes and hoes, past low greenhouses of brick and mud, studded with chimney stacks. Yellow squash blossoms trailed over walls that surrounded straight, meticulously tended fruits and vegetables gardens. Agriculture followed the river, but soon gave way to a desolate country of abandoned irrigation ditches and deserted villages. Beyond the ruins of an old salt town on a dry lakebed we found the old IVPP sites and began our own exploration of the area.

For me, the landscape was strangely reminiscent of Montana, only a little more arid. There was little or no wildlife; just raptors riding thermal currents above steep walled narrow ravines. Compared with the fossil-rich outcrops of eastern Montana, the Junggar only reluctantly gives up her dead. Bones are sparse and hard to find. We split up and spread out, searching the dry coolies for scraps of bone. Pterosaur material, a rare find at home, seemed relatively common here - strange that such hollow, fragile bone survived in a flood plain environment. Fossil turtles turned up more frequently than some of us would like - Guillanna preferred dinosaurs but found beautiful skulls with the spinal column still in tact. Day by day, bone by bone, the fossil discoveries increased along with the soaring temperatures: a theropod, short-snouted crocodile, a pterosaur wing, an anklylosaur. The paleo-environment began to take shape, and the picture started to come into a little better focus.

The expedition also offered a rare opportunity to see rural China and to compare the cultural and economic realities with that of rural Montana. Stark differences lie in the amenities that we take for granted - plumbing, cars, electricity, medical care, and education. But similarities also exist: an agriculture-based economy, a slower pace, and a greater sense of “community”. No where was the latter more apparent than street dances where little children, parents, grandparents, and teenagers all joined in dancing as the music shifted from ballroom to hard rock as the strobe lights flashed cadence against the darkness. We sat at a table one night talking with two students, the only English we had heard spoken in weeks. Soon they were translating for their father who joined us, then his wife, their grandmother and others. The father encouraged his son and daughter to go to the house and eat dinner but they preferred to stay and talk. He smiled and soon came back with food to share with all of us. The scene had a Montana familiarity and I was impressed more by the similarities I found in people than in their differences. Working in western China offered a unique chance to experience a side of Chinese culture seldom seen by traditional tourist travel, and I look forward to future expeditions.