The hominid crew outing on a typical day is usually a well planned undertaking that usually has to be discussed the night before. Few will actually notice that the group of fossil hunters one is likely to meet out in the badlands, is following a strict plan that takes into account time management as well as surveying best practices.
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Crew going over the day’s survey plan atop a cliff overlooking the Tul Bor tuff sediments of area 129
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Usually the plan for the day will have been discussed the night before using the available resources including but not limited to maps and the use of the best scouts in camp; these will be people who know the are well and they come in handy when in the sweltering heat some times, it is possible to loose direction and head in the wrong way.
Crew boards these utility vehicle capable of moving around this rugged terrain in dawn to start off their day
A day out starts in the dawn and the crew having taken breakfast in the early morning light, board the utility vehicles and head off towards the are that will have been decided upon the night before. Sometimes the are will have been known to be a potential area, meaning one or several hominins will have been found there before or geologically, it will be a potential area for discovering other precious specimens.
Walking takes the crew through thorny bushes while attempting to cross one exposure to another in the sweltering daylight heat
The crew then upon reaching the area to survey sits and looks at prepared maps and decides which areas are to be worked on a particular day. Not every time does a known area turn out to be productive and the crew will at times walk for kilometres before discovering even a single specimen for the day only walking on rugged rocks without any break geologically!
Lonyumun beds; one of the well known geological sediments in area 13 around Ileret in the Turkana Basin area where occasionally the crew scouts for these valuable fossil specimens. Notice the merciless stare of these rocks that are capable of bouncing back heat in the day and welcoming a fossil hunter with an uncomfortable heat wave
……………next we will look at fossil discovering process and the dos and don’ts in this extremely professional and ethical work
