Discovery of a yellow-eyed dinosaur
From the sauropod family, the herbivore discovered by Bruce Lime (yellow eye):
On February 21 of each year, public opinion renews the question about the fate of the dinosaur skeleton that was excavated by the geology team, affiliated with the “Sonatrach” company, in the year 2000. Whenever the anniversary comes, the residents of Ain Sefra, in the southwest of the country, experience disappointment in Those who filmed for them a tape of Arqoubi promises, the biggest of which was transforming the discovery site into “Jurassic Park,” the first of its kind in Algeria.
The first news about the dinosaur
Since the late nineteenth century, the district of Ain Sefra (Ostrich Province) has attracted the attention of French researchers in geology, due to its diverse geological formations dating back to the second geological period.
The beginning was with the researchers Pouyanne and Peron, who completed a geological study covering the period from 1874 to 1883, taking the suburb of Tiout, located east of Ain Sefra, as its stage. Then Flamond followed them with his famous reference field study in 1911, reported in 1001. A page in which he discussed the geology and geography of the Upper Oran Strip and the Sahara.
Then Cornet came, in 1949, to complete another study of the region, followed by Denis Galmier with aerial coverage of the Atlas Saharan palaces in southern Oran, which resulted in nine reference maps in 1972. As for Jean Paul Bassoullet, he completed a study in 1973 on the second geological time of the Western Saharan Atlas. The year 1998 came when the Algerian geological researcher, Al-Arabi Makhali, presented his study on the geological development of the Saharan Atlas palaces.
The first talk about traces of dinosaurs dates back to when researcher Basoli came to the region in 1973, along with researcher Philippe Taki, in Ain Safra, to examine and study a rock bearing fingerprints consisting of three lines, along with researcher Youssef Elio, where the results they arrived at revealed that it was traces of a dinosaur leg.
This discovery did not last long, as the rock was crushed because it was located in a gravel quarry, and its owner was unaware of the value of such excavations. The first discovery of dinosaur bones and vertebrae goes back to an amateur researcher, named Bin Yaqoub Abdel Majeed, who, starting in 1989, was able to collect 16 dinosaur bones, after frequenting the place called “Ruwais Al-Jir”, around the village of Aulqaq, in the province of Al-Safisifa district. He also took the initiative to contact the researcher at the Sonatrach Research and Development Center, Farida Muhammad.
After the center announced the discovery of the Qasr dinosaur, it assigned its nephew, herbalist Mustafa Khalifi, to deliver the dinosaur vertebrae and bones it had collected to the head of the project in exchange for a delivery receipt. This happened following a dinner organized in honor of the project team.
?Where did the palace dinosaur go
In October 2000, the geology team, affiliated with the Sonatrach Research and Development Center, discovered three sites of dinosaur fossils in Jebel Ruwais al-Jir (60 km west of Ain Safra). The first site began work in March 2001, in field coordination with researchers from the Faculty of Science. Earth and Geography (University of Oran).
In order to ensure a sure start to its work, the Algerian research team sought the services of the international French paleontologist Philippe Taki, especially at the stage of determining the position and orientation of the bones, not to mention surrounding them with a plaster cast, as they are often shattered and broken.
The research and excavation team was able to collect more than 300 bones, including vertebrae, noting that the dinosaur’s skeleton consists of 700 bones, which are of the palace dinosaur, as they called it, a young man from the (Les Sauropodes) species, reaching 9 meters in length, from herbivores. He walks on four legs. He lived within an era ranging from 160 to 175 million years ago within the Middle Jurassic period of the Western Saharan Atlas (Algerian High Atlas).
In the midst of the rain of doubts and questions about the direction taken by the “Dinosaur of Palaces,” the official story, presented by the Research and Development Center to Sonatrach, stated: While knowledgeable sources say that the dinosaur was transported to a specialized laboratory in Paris to be analyzed and molded to produce it in the original version, but “it came out and did not return.”
The owners of the Dinosaur Project, under the leadership of Ms. Farida Mohammed, rushed to publish their scientific research on the discovery of the “New Century” in Algeria in specialized scientific journals in French and English, starting in 2002, where they focused on the fact that this Algerian “sauropod” is the first clear-cut discovery, given its appearance. Partially complete (skeleton, pieces of skull, teeth). Perhaps this scientific achievement that defined the region in international scientific forums is the only souvenir from the research team that did not return.
Philip Taki's will to the Algerians
Paleontologist Philip Taki said about the discovery that it was a very important event, given that the site contains bones of the animal itself. He considered that achieving the collection of 300 bones was a bet that there were other dinosaurs, and if this were to be achieved, the region would become famous, which would raise it to the ranks of countries that Tourism has boomed thanks to dinosaur traces, similar to France, which has a geological reserve with local tour guides, and the same is true in Portugal. If Algeria wants - according to him - to promote the development of tourism in the Ain Sefra region, then tracing the traces and fingerprints of dinosaurs is the most prominent mechanism for getting it out of isolation and the unknown.
Source: websites