Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
coordinator as well as an indefatigable driver, keeping track of supplies
and running errands between our camp and Neuquen, the nearest
large city. Detailed lists of the supplies we would need had to be com-
piled and each item obtained. Some items were purchased in
Argentina, but others had to be bought in New York and shipped to
Buenos Aires on our flights.
Our camping and cooking equipment was fairly standard. But for
celebratory
asados,
a special kind of barbecue commonly practiced
by the Argentines, we packed a grill and a couple of iron rods to build
a cross on which to hang the carcass of a sheep or goat over the fire.
Our list of collecting equipment was more specialized. To excavate
fossils and rock samples, we shipped shovels, picks, rock hammers,
crowbars, chisels, brushes, special glue, dental tools, and sample
bags. To construct protective jackets around fossils, we bought large
bags of plaster, plaster bandages, burlap, and dozens of rolls of toilet
tissue. We had to accurately record the location of our fossil sites and
places where we collected rock samples, so we ordered geologic maps
and GPS (global positioning system) units. These small computers
receive signals from orbiting satellites for calculating the precise lon-
gitude and latitude of the place where one is standing. A special
instrument called a Brunton compass was required to measure the
thickness of the rock layers that formed the ridges from which we col-
lected samples for magnetic analysis. These samples had to be
wrapped in aluminum foil and secured with masking tape for the trip
back to the lab.
In developing the collecting agreements with the local governments
and institutions in Neuquen, we received invaluable assistance from
our colleague and co-leader Rodolfo Coria. Luis and Rodolfo had
become friends when Rodolfo worked as an illustrator and collector for
Jose Bonaparte at the same time that Luis was Bonaparte's student.
Rodolfo is a tall, lanky, easygoing man who now serves as the director
of the Carmen Funes Museum, located in the town of Plaza Huincul,
about an hour's drive west of Neuquen. He had moved to Plaza
Huincul from Buenos Aires to be closer to the rich dinosaur deposits
of Patagonia. Rodolfo and his team of fossil hunters from the Carmen
Funes Museum have helped to discover and describe many new
dinosaurs from Neuquen, including one of the largest animals ever to
walk on earth,
Argentinosaurus,
and a ferocious meat-eating dinosaur,
