Geoscience Reference
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also indicated that, at the time of nesting, the Auca Mahuevo
sauropods did not have a strong preference to lay their eggs on a par-
ticular substrate.
With four nests to clean, map, and analyze, in addition to the ongo-
ing excavation projects, our working schedule became frenzied. As if
this were not enough, we soon realized that the nests were too big and
too fragile to be collected; sadly, we would have to leave them to the
mercy of erosion, which would destroy them with the next rain. The
only alternative we had was to make molds of the nests so that they
could be replicated back in the lab. This would entail not only a lot of
work but also a lot of molding material, of which we had almost
none. After carefully considering the time we had left, we decided to
concentrate our efforts on the two best-preserved nests. Luckily,
Nancy Rufenacht had gained a lot of experience molding big dinosaur
bones back in Wyoming—eventually she would show how worthy she
was to be nicknamed the Latex Queen of New Orleans. Nancy, a
skilled fossil preparator from the Natural History Museum of Los
Angeles County, was making her Patagonian debut. With her strong
New Orleans accent and her superb sense of humor, Nancy soon
became the life of our new-millennium party. She put together a list
of molding tools and materials—jars of latex, silicon and plastic
resin, wooden spatulas, and other tools—which we immediately
undertook to find in Neuquen.
Nancy, Adrian, Gary Takeuchi, and a few others joined forces to
mold the nests. Gary now hails from the Los Angeles County Museum
and soon became known as Taka. With his jovial spirit and "exotic"
Japanese background, Gary quickly became the best friend of all the
gauchos in the area. With his experience gained through years of col-
lecting fossil mammals at the famous La Brea tar pits and elsewhere
in southern California, Gary became an invaluable asset for our crew.
Nancy supervised the operation, training the others in the art of
molding specimens in the field. Working in teams of two, they had to
clean, mold, and then remove the molds from the nests, while care-
fully monitoring weather changes, since unexpected rain or dust
storms could ruin the molds. Before removing a mold, they also had
to construct a sturdy covering over the soft latex mold itself, so that an
undeformed cast could be made from the mold back in the lab. It
would take the remaining two weeks for her and the three other crew
