Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
TEN
Our Return to the Scene
of the Catastrophe
The 1999 Expedition
Just as modern investigators must often return to the scene of an acci-
dent to gather more evidence after their initial investigation, we also
needed to reexamine the site of our discovery. There were still many
mysteries about how the sauropods had laid their eggs: Did they lay
them in discrete nests or scatter them randomly across the surface of
the floodplain? If they were in nests, how many were laid at one
time? Did all the eggs belong to one sauropod species, or did multiple
species use the same site? Did they return to the nesting site year after
year or use the site only once?
To help solve these mysteries, we needed some special expertise, so
two specialists on dinosaur eggs came with us. One was Frankie Jack-
son from Montana State University and the Museum of the Rockies
in Bozeman. Before traveling to Patagonia, she had spent more than
ten years collecting and studying dinosaur eggs, embryos, and nests in
Montana for Jack Horner, whose team of collectors was responsible for
completely reinvigorating the study of dinosaur eggs and embryos in
the late 1970s with their discovery of Egg Mountain. Frankie had
served as Jack's chief collector and preparator throughout much of the
collecting and research at the site. A tall, thin, self-effacing woman,
Frankie speaks with a slow Southern drawl, which she honed to per-
fection in her native Alabama. Her passion for and knowledge of
dinosaur eggs is boundless.
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