SCIENCE-ARGENTINA: The Titanosaurus Will Have to Wait

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 13 2001 (IPS) - A dinosaur cemetery is hidden beneath the province of Neuquén, in southern Argentina. But the largely volunteer team of experts working to exhume the fossils is often forced to halt efforts due to lack of resources.

Such was palaeontologist Jorge Calvo’s explanation Tuesday when he announced that his team would put off for one year the extraction of an enormous dinosaur fossil, after a month of digging on the shores of Los Barreales lake, near Loma de la Lata.

Neuquén province covers nearly 100,000 square km and is located some 1,200 km southeast of Buenos Aires.

This Titanosaurus – believed to have lived 87 million years ago – could be even larger than the Argentinosaurus discovered in 1989 in Plaza Huincul, also in Neuquén, and considered the largest in the world. It measures 40 metres long, 25 metres high, and weighs more than 100 tons.

In the first stage of the dig, the experts uncovered a great number of neck and tail vertebrae, as well as the complete sacrum, the pelvis and the remains of another dinosaur that may have attacked the first.

“We hope to obtain financing so we can return, and if not, we will come back in February 2002 when we are on vacation and the climate is less hostile,” said Calvo, referring to the strong winds that have whipped through the excavation site as the Southern Hemisphere winter nears.

This year’s digging session ended last Friday with a violent storm that destroyed much of the palaeontologists’ camp. “We don’t have the equipment or the machines that an oil company has for remaining here year-round,” acknowledged Calvo.

A petroleum corporation, which has its own camp set up near the dinosaur dig, offered the scientists a backhoe, a generator to produce electricity for their camp and ice to preserve food and beverages.

Such is the uncertainty surrounding the endeavours of “dinosaur diggers” in Argentina.

Calvo, of the University of Comahue in Neuquén, explained that finding a site with fossils is no difficult feat in this province. “The eastern half of Neuquén is full of dinosaurs, such that wherever you excavate you can find something,” he affirmed.

Dinosaur remains have been found in all of Argentina’s southern provinces that make up the region of Patagonia.

The latest major discovery was a sauropod from the Jurassic period (140-200 million years ago), found alongside a mammal thought to be the oldest of those known in South America.

One case that had a great impact on the international scientific community was the unearthing of an Unenlagia, 80 million years old, an animal similar to a Velociraptor and considered a distant cousin of birds.

According to Calvo, the first sign of a major discovery could be the size of “a little cookie.” Then begins the demanding job of cleaning the piece with brushes and chisels until the planet’s distant past shines forth.

As far as Calvo’s abandoned Titanosaurus, the fossils are so large that it was impossible to finish the dig in just one month.

“It is a shame to leave it, because it is a very large specimen and appears to be complete. But it is protected and there is no danger that what we have already discovered could be ruined. If we obtain support, we will continue in the coming months. If not, we’ll return every February,” Calvo promised.

The deficit of this undertaking – which promotes tourism, say the palaeontologists – begins with the lack of funding to pay the scientists, and there is a lack of technicians.

Meanwhile, the fossils gather dust in museums as they await thorough examination.

“Over the last five years we have accumulated dinosaur fossils that have been covered in plaster (for preservation) without being able to clean and study them because of budget shortfalls,” stated Calvo, who, despite the apparent indifference of the government, has decided to continue digging up the past.