NEW OBJECTIVE

Thank you for your support and for enabling this field school to become a reality. The students and I are so grateful.
If we reach 120%, we will add an extra few days to Ben and Doug's journey to go visit the Tswaing Meteor Crater, an archaeological and geological site where, 220 000 years ago, a meteorite fell in Africa and left a 1km wide crater.
This is a unique and amazing site that Ben and Doug would experience and share with you on Youtube in an extra video.

ABSTRACT

THRINAKS stands for THerapsid Researchers’ INitiative for African Karoo Study. The THRINAKS project is a field school organised in South Africa by the Evolutionary Studies Institute of Johannesburg, which aims at training a future generation of African Palaeontologists. We asked our favourite palaeo-YouTubers Ben G. Thomas and Doug A. James to help us in this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

OUR STORY

My name is Julien Benoit. I am a palaeontologist in Johannesburg at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, in South Africa. My colleagues and I created this crowdfunding campaign in order to organise a field school for our most disadvantaged students so that they can experience the joys and challenges of field palaeontology. The aim is to collect the equivalent of €10 000 so that this field school would be free of charge for the students. During this field trip into the South African Karoo, our students, as well as Ben and Doug, will be taught how to prospect for fossils, find bones and fossil plants, excavate, make a plaster jacket, log, map and GPS mark fossils before transporting them back to the collections of the Evolutionary Studies Institute where they will be stored and catalogued. This will be a unique opportunity to discover the amazing richness of the Karoo extinct fauna and flora, and learn how much sweat, tears, but also comradery is hidden behind every fossil discovery.

Here is a glimpse into what we do in the field:

To help us advertise this crowdfunding campaign and raise enough money for the THRINAKS project, we asked for the assistance of two famous palaeo-YouTubers, Ben and Doug from the channel Ben G Thomas. If the campaign is successful, we will fly them to South Africa and take them to the field with us! They too will learn the skills of field palaeontologists, and if you ask for it loud enough, will make a video about their adventures in the desert.

WHERE?

Our trip will take us to the vast Karoo desert, which is famous for its abundant fossils, its hot climate, its awe-inspiring landscape, its tasty lamb and its beautiful night sky.

Karoo rocks encompass the Carboniferous to the Jurassic periods (~300 to 200 million years old) and document about a hundred million years of the evolution of life on land. Our trip will take us to the middle Permian rocks, when dinocephalians ruled the Earth and the late Permian when dicynodonts thrived and were hunted by the fierce sabre-toothed gorgonopsians. South Africa is famed for recording a Permian-Triassic boundary which corresponds to the end-Permian extinction, the most significant event in the history of life on Earth as it saw the extinction of nothing less than 90% of all living species! Our students, Ben, and Doug will be able to witness this event firsthand. Finally, we will go to the Golden Gate National park, where the majestuous sandstone cliffs have delivered some of the oldest dinosaurs in the world.

WHEN?

End of 2021, for two weeks.

Who?

Dr. Julien Benoit, Ben G. Thomas, Doug A. James, and our students (picture below).

Can I trust THRINAKS will make good use of my money?

Yes, you can, because we already did this in the past with:

- The French palaeo-YouTuber Cédrik Jurassik. Here is a link to the videos he made with us in the field after successfully helping us with a crowdfunding campaign

- The American YouTuber Aron Ra. Here is a link to the video he made with us in the field after successfully helping us with a crowdfunding campaign

What about COVID-19 ?

The field school will be organised in September and hopefully, the situation will have changed for the best by then. At worst, the fieldtrip will be postponed to December 2021 or January 2022, during the touristic season when South African borders will be open for tourists. Because it is summer, it will be very hot in the Karoo at that time, but we are passionate enough to endure it!