Angola is best known for oil and diamonds, but dinosaur hunters say the country holds a "museum in the ground" of rare fossils -- some actually jutting from the earth -- waiting to be discovered.

安哥拉以石油和鑽石馳名，但尋找恐龍的研究人員表示，安哥拉有座稀有化石的「地上博物館」等著開採，有些化石其實已經露出地表。

"Angola is the final frontier for palaeontology," explained Louis Jacobs of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, part of the PaleoAngola project which is hunting for dinosaur fossils. "Due to the war, there's been little research carried out so far, but now we're getting in finally and there's so much to find. In some areas there are literally fossils sticking out of the rocks. It's like a museum in the ground."

「安哥拉可說是古生物學的最後疆界，」德州達拉斯南美以美大學的雅各布斯解釋說，該校是尋找恐龍化石的「古安哥拉計畫」分部。「由於戰爭，迄今已進行的相關研究少之又少，現在我們終於上路，有很多有待發掘。有些地方，化石根本從岩石中伸出來，看來就像地上博物館。」

The first reports of dinosaur remains in Angola were made in the 1960s, but a bloody liberation struggle against the Portuguese followed by three decades of civil war covered the country in landmines and made it a no-go zone for researchers.

安哥拉是在1960年代第一次發表報告，發現恐龍遺骸，但一場對抗葡萄牙的血腥解放鬥爭及隨之上場的30年內戰使全安哥拉布滿地雷，研究人員視為「危區」，避之唯恐不及。

Following the 2002 peace deal, however, the land is quite literally opening up to fossil hunters who are piecing together the country's Jurassic past.

但在2002年達成和平協議後，這塊土地已對尋找化石的研究人員開放，他們正努力拼湊安哥拉侏儸紀的過去歷史。

The biggest find to date was made in 2005 when Octavio Mateus from the New Lisbon University, also part of the PaleoAngola project, retrieved five bones from the front left leg of a sauropod dinosaur on the coast at Iembe.

迄今最大規模的發現是在2005年，當時也投入古安哥拉計畫的新里斯本大學的馬泰烏斯，在安哥拉艾安比海岸找回一隻蜥腳類棘龍左前腳的五根骨頭。

Since then, most skulls and skeletons uncovered by the PaleoAngola team have been from turtles, sharks, and aquatic plesiosaurs and mosasaurs -- which are more closely related to snakes than to dinosaurs. One of the mosasaur species has even been dubbed Angolasaurus.

此後，古安哥拉考古團隊陸續出土的頭骨和骸骨，大半來自烏龜、鯊魚和水生蛇頸龍及滄龍，牠們與其說是恐龍不如說是蛇的近親。其中有一種滄龍還被稱為安哥拉滄龍。

The focus of the digs so far have been along the coast north of Luanda, and in the desert province of Namibe where sand cliffs drop dramatically to the ocean below, with fossils poking out of the embankments.

目前挖掘工作重心放在羅安達北部海岸沿線及納米比省的沙漠，這裡的沙岩懸崖急劇陡降到下面的海洋中，化石則從堤岸上冒出來。

However, Mateus, who is also working with researchers from Maastricht's Natural History Museum, believes the sauropod bones are just a beginning. "We believe there are more dinosaurs to be found, we just need the facilities and means to dig for them," he said.

但也和馬斯垂克自然歷史博物館研究人員攜手合作的馬泰烏斯相信，棘龍的骸骨只是開端。他說：「我們相信還會發現更多恐龍，我們只是需要挖掘恐龍遺骨的設備和方法。」

"Angola is amazing for fossils. Some places here are the best in the world in terms of the fossils. We keep finding new animals, so it's always exciting to be here," he added.

他說：「安哥拉是化石福地，這裡有些地方的化石是全世界最優的，我們不斷發掘新的動物，因此在這裡總是充滿刺激，令人興奮。」

Much of Angola's fossil richness results from dramatic continental shifts tens of millions of years ago, which saw the land transform from desert to tropics. Today the country remains tropical in the north at its border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and arid desert in the south where it meets Namibia.

安哥拉豐富的化石，大半來自數千萬年前大陸板塊的巨幅變動，當時這塊土地從沙漠變成熱帶地區。今天，安哥拉北部和剛果民主共和國接壤的地方仍是熱帶地區，南部毗鄰納米比亞的地帶則是沙漠不毛之地。

Researchers hope that fossils will help uncover more about continental shifts and establish a more exact date for when what is now South America split from Africa and the southern Atlantic was formed.

研究人員希望，化石有助於揭開更多有關大陸板塊變動的奧秘，並對今天的南美板塊何時從非洲分離並形成南大西洋能建立更精確的日期。

"Fossils can date how animals migrated from one place to another and how continents moved through time," Mateus explained. "From fossils we can work out when terrestrial animals were no longer able to cross from Africa to South America and when marine animals were," he said.

馬泰烏斯解釋說：「化石可以記錄動物如何從一個地點遷徙到另一地的日期，及大陸板塊這段時間如何移動。」他又說，「我們可以從化石了解，陸地動物從什麼時候開始無法再從非洲渡海到南美洲，海裡的動物則仍暢行無阻。」

The rocks are also a reference to the point in time when creatures like mosasaurs and dinosaurs were likely driven to extinction by the impact of a large asteroid which slammed into the sea near Mexico 68 million years ago.

岩石也是個時間參考點，6800萬年前一顆巨大的小行星在墨西哥附近撞擊海洋時所造成的衝擊，可能逼使滄龍和恐龍等物種被迫滅絕。

"You can see where lava has flown into wet sand and then next to it where it's flown over dry land, and that gives us an indication of when different things were happening millions of years ago," Mateus explained.

馬泰烏斯解釋說：「你可以看見火山噴發的熔岩流入潮濕的沙地，再流到鄰近乾燥的沙地上，這可以提示我們，千百萬年前不同的事何時發生。」

Jacobs, who once headed Kenya's National Paleontology Museum, said the project also aims to train Angolan scientists "so in the long-term they can run their show. Angola should be able to use its own unique resources in museums to teach future generations about their country and the world."

曾擔任肯亞國家古生物博物館館長的雅各布斯表示，這項計畫目的也在訓練安哥拉科學家，「從長遠來看，可以讓他們自導自演，凡事自己來。安哥拉應該能夠運用其博物館獨特的資源，訓練培育未來世世代代認識他們的國家和世界。」

This handout picture taken on August 1, 2006, shows a paleonthologist looking at stratification in Bentiaba in the southern desert province of Namibe in Angola. Angola is best known for oil and diamonds, but dinosaur hunters say the country holds a "museum in the ground" of rare fossils, waiting to be discovered.

這張攝於2006年8月1日的照片（法新社）可見一位古生物學家正在考察安哥拉南部納米比省沙漠中本提阿巴的地層結構。安哥拉以石油和鑽石馳名，但尋找恐龍的研究人員表示，安哥拉有座稀有化石的「地上博物館」等著開採。