Excavations of dinosaur fossils in Morocco at Xposure 2024

Such is the power of photographs in the educational journey of children, and Xposure and Sharjah are on an exemplary path in their efforts to provide an enriching cultural and educational journey for visitors and residents alike. One such treasure house is the collection taken for the National Geographic by Paolo Verzone, an acclaimed Italian photographer now based in Spain and France, who has dedicated his career to capturing the essence of the world around him. Verzone, who has nearly three decades of experience, is a three-time winner of the World Press Photo awards.

The series at Xposure 2024 explores a hunt for dinosaur fossils in Morocco by palaeontologists from Université Hassan II of Casablanca, Morocco, and University of Detroit Mercy in the US. The pictures follow the activities of a Spinosaurus – one of the largest predatory dinosaurs that lived on earth 99 million years ago – excavation team in Taouz and Gara Sbaa in the blazing desert sun as they remove debris with large tools, check limestone slabs containing fish fossils, delicately examine a huge dinosaur tooth or measure a foot bone that has surfaced out of the red sandstone soil. The quest has yielded a dinosaur fossil that is the most complete Cretaceous theropod – characterised by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb – ever found in North Africa. Measuring 50 feet, Spinosaurus had an elongated dorsal spine, long torso, short legs and thick short tail.

One image points to a pile of bags that the excavators leave behind the shade of a huge boulder in the hope of keeping their water bottles cool, while another shows an array of pastry boxes filled with fossils for sale.

The photos point to a flourishing market for fossil sales among the local community; some like Mohand Ihmadi, a shop owner in Alnif, has saved the rarest fossils that pass through his shop and hopes to set up a museum. “It’s important we preserve our past,” Verzona quotes him in his photograph caption. Palaeontologists in the region like Samir Zouhri from Université Hassan II, are also building relationships with the local inhabitants to ensure that scientifically important fossils make their way to the public trust, Verzona points out.

The photographs of the isolated bones retrieved from the eastern Moroccan region offer a glimpse into the biodiversity of the Kem Kem ecosystem, a warm and wet habitat that was home to predators, herbivores and crocodilians. The fish-eating reptile that Spinosaurus was, it could thrive in the region owing to the absence of crocodilian competitors. The Kem Kem find between 2007 and 2018 completed like a jigsaw puzzle four-fifth of an entire tail with a total of 131 elements.

The dinosaur project also sheds light on revolutionary experiments and studies in the US and the UK using crocodiles, alligators and chameleons to understand the behaviour of the ancient creatures. CT scans of frozen crocodile carcasses to reconstruct the internal anatomy of dinosaur skulls point to the enormous human effort that goes into understanding our past and extinct inhabitants of the earth. By illuminating this massive human mission, Verzona has done humanity a great service.