Earth and Environmental Science Chairman Robert Giegengack claims he is not a dinosaur person.
But he's found the second largest dinosaur bone known in the world.
On Monday, Giegengack -- or "Gieg" as his students refer to him -- spoke to a crowd of roughly 30 graduate and undergraduate students at the Graduate Student Center about his geological research in Egypt.
Giegengack is one of many speakers who have been invited to speak as part of the Knowledge 101 Lecture Series, being held at the center this semester.
Introducing the speaker was a woman who has heard all of Giegengack's tales many times before -- his daughter.
"He's a great lecturer. He brings people in because he's fun to listen to," said event organizer Kate Giegengack, who is also a graduate student.
With the help of a slide projector and a witty sense of humor, Giegengack spoke about his numerous trips to Egypt and the fieldwork he has performed there over the last 35 years, including studying the sequence of sediment in the Aswan reservoir and the dinosaur bones that he discovered in 2000.
Pictures of rolling dunes of sand, ancient Egyptian temples and newly excavated bone appeared in color on the screen as Giegengack fondly recounted his many trips to Egypt.
"I have come to love that country very much," he said. "It is hot, noisy, alien, desperately poor, but it is the most civilized place I have ever been."
Giegengack recounted the work of German paleontologist Ernst Stromer, who in 1911 discovered bones of a new dinosaur in the Bahariya Desert.
However, Stromer's specimens -- which had been taken back to Germany -- were destroyed in 1944 by Royal Air Force bombs in Munich.
When former graduate students Josh Smith and Matt Lamanna proposed to Giegengack the idea of finding the "lost dinosaurs" of Egypt in 1999, he was more than willing to make the trip.
"They educated me... I was quite confident we'd find the lost bones," Giegengack said.
But finding the site was not as easy as it sounds. Once Giegengack arrived -- with Smith and another graduate student, Jennifer Smith, in tow -- they realized that Stromer had published false coordinates in his work to protect his sites from treasure hunters.
Amazingly, the team of researchers inadvertently found the site shortly afterwards while driving in a truck.
"It was absolute blind luck," Giegengack recalled.
"These grad students did their homework, and they knew what we were looking for," he added.
The highlight of Giegengack's lecture, however, came when he discussed his discovery of the Paralititon Stromeri dinosaur -- an herbivore that until 2000 was unknown to geologists.
While lecturing may pale in comparison to discovering new species of dinosaurs, Giegengack said he finds it exciting nonetheless.
"It was fun. It's always fun," Giegengack said later of the lecture.
"People love dinosaurs for some absurd reason, so you never know who's going to show up, but it's mostly people from inside the department."
But according to his audience, it's because of Giegengack himself, not the dinosaurs, that they came to listen.
"I always love to hear Giegengack speak," College of General Studies student Ken Wachs said. "He always has these amazing topics that just suck you in. He's an amazing storyteller."
