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Nicknamed “the cradle of storms,” Aniakchak Bay offers something new to Fiorillo on each visit.

During the late Cretaceous, Aniakchak wasn’t much farther south than it is today, so this team has returned here nearly every year since 2016 to piece together a more comprehensive picture of how dinosaurs were able to survive here.

The study compared the team’s findings not only from Aniakchak Bay but also from work on Alaska’s North Slope and in Denali National Park and Preserve.

Fiorillo, the executive director of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, has spent 10 field seasons at Aniakchak.

The two paleontologists were climbing over dumpster-sized sandstone boulders, scanning the long, rocky beach of Aniakchak National Monument & Preserve at low tide for dinosaur footprints.