PALAEONTOLOGY
Deep time
IN THE KEM KEM
Deep beneath northern Africa ’ s desert sands lie clues to an Earth that once brimmed with verdant life .
Dr Nizar Ibrahim loves the silence of the Sahara , that vast expanse of desert filling nearly all of northern Africa . Out in the Kem Kem , a steep escarpment and plateau weaving through south-eastern Morocco , often very close to the border with Algeria , the palaeontologist and comparative anatomist often finds himself reflecting on big ideas – deep time or the importance of capacity-building in a postcolonial world – between scouring rocks and sand for clues .
“ It is always a magical feeling when you find something ,” says Dr Ibrahim , 39 , a blue-eyed German / Moroccan adventurer with Indiana Jones-style charisma . “ In most cases , no other human has seen what you ’ re seeing . Your brain is racing : is this a humerus ? A femur ?”
He smiles . “ We now make 3D models of many of the bones we study so that if anything happens to them , we will still have digital copies . That way fossils can be studied by scientists from developing countries who might not be able to travel easily .”
30 ISSUE 04 / 2022