T. bataar, as it is known, was a Tyrannosaurus rex cousin that lived some seventy million years ago, in what is now the Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia.

NEWYORKER: Bones of Contention

During the past few years the storms have grown in ferocity and scale, and they are at the vanguard of an advancing Gobi desert that threatens more than 400 million people in the Chinese provinces of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia and Shaanxi.

CNN: Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands

On launch day, the live studio programme went on for about five hours, with studio guests and reporters on the scene at the Jiuquan spaceport on the edge of the Gobi desert.

BBC: China in space: Running fast to catch up

Using a fleet of automobiles supported by a camel caravan, he would lead an expedition to the Gobi desert in an attempt to reconstruct the entire natural history of the Central Asian plateau.

FORBES: Raider Of the Lost Egg

To orchestrate his 1993 Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10, 000 Meters, for example, he and some assistants suspended approximately six miles of fuse in the Gobi desert, beginning where the Great Wall ended.

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They even planted trees to cut dust that flows in from the Gobi Desert, but today, today was one of the worst days we've seen in the week we've been here.

NPR: Beijing Preps For Opening Of Olympics

But the real attraction is Friedland himself and his tales of copper and gold deposits buried under the Gobi Desert.

FORBES: The Promoter

The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar was looted from Mongolia's Gobi Desert and brought to the United States illegally, the U.S. Attorney's Office and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a joint statement Monday.

CNN: U.S. seeks to return Tyrannosaurus skeleton to Mongolia

Nathan Myhrvold and Jack Horner had branched out from Montana, and at the end of the summer were going to Mongolia, to hunt in the Gobi desert.

NEWYORKER: In the Air