Angola is a treasure trove for fossils.

Closed off for decades due to civil war, scientists are discovering that Angola is a treasure trove for fossils, and paleontologists are flocking to the country where fossils are "sticking out of the rocks ... like a museum in the ground." The majority of the finds so far are skulls and skeletons of turtles, sharks, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs, as well as bones of a sauropod. The PaleoAngola project has been undertaken through funding from the National Geographical Society and the Petroleum Research Foundation of America in collaboration with universities in Angola and the Netherlands.

Karen Ann Gajewski is a contributing editor to the Humanist and a documentation project coordinator.