Dinosaurs once roamed Alaska. You can come help find them as a working member of a research expedition on the research vessel Endeavour, exploring the incredibly remote Alaska Peninsula.

Led by paleontologists Anthony Fiorillo, PhD, and Paul J. McCarthy, PhD, you will spend 12 days looking for dinosaur bones and footprints of hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs, and the fossils of other animals (including ammonites) and plants. The prints and fossils we find will expand our understanding of dinosaurs on the edge of the Arctic in the late Jurassic into the Cretaceous.

 
You will hammer, dig, scrape, brush, and assess specimens. Your hands will get dirty. You will be contributing to science in a very real way.

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There are only five spaces available! 

We will depart from Kodiak with stops in Kukak Bay, Geographic Harbor, Katmai Bay, Paule Bay, Aniakchak Bay, Chignik Bay, Chignik Lagoon, the Kupreanof headlands, and dozens of other inlets and islets. 

This coast is as wild as any coast in the world. In addition to fossils, you’ll likely see giant brown bears, volcanoes, and whales.

On most days we’ll have two or more shore excursions, with a review of our findings with Professors Fiorillo and McCarthy back on board every night.  In down times, you are welcome to fish and kayak using the Endeavour’s gear.

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A formal description of the research mission can be found here.

Preparation

 

Dr. Fiorillo will conduct an orientation meeting by video call before the expedition. A reading list and a gear list will be provided on the call. Both scientists will be available to answer questions in a group chat before and after the expedition. 

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Cost

The cost is $7,250 per person and includes room and board on the Endeavour. Airfare is not included.

Personnel

Anthony (Tony) Fiorillo, Ph.D. is the author of Alaska Dinosaurs: an Ancient Arctic World (2018) and is co-author of five other books and numerous papers. He is also the Executive Director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, as well as a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at Southern Methodist University. For many years he was vice president of research & collections and chief curator at the Perot Museum of Nature & Science. His doctorate in Vertebrate Paleontology is from the University of Pennsylvania. See Wikipedia.

 
Paul J. McCarthy, PhD, is a sedimentologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, specializing in high-latitude Cretaceous environments, fossil soils, and dinosaur paleontology, including theropod and hadrosaurid dinosaurs, examining tracks and fossils across northern Alaska, including Denali National Park and the Colville River region.

 
Captain Bill Urschel, executive director of Alaska Endeavour, has been running the research vessel Endeavour since 2007 from Southern California into the Arctic.