Mark A. Norell

Mark A. Norell, PhD, is Chairman of the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. He is one of the team leaders of the joint American Museum of Natural History/Mongolian Academy of Sciences expedition to the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, which was launched in 1990. Dr. Norell and the team have generated new ideas about bird origins and the groups of dinosaurs to which modern birds are most closely related. Dr. Norell was part of the team of scientists who, in 1998, announced the discovery in northeastern China of two 120-million-year-old dinosaur species, both of which show unequivocal evidence of true feathers. Dr. Norell began at the American Museum of Natural History in 1989. He is the author of several books and spends significant time in Mongolia and China.


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