Adventure in Patagonia:
Dinosaur hunting in Neuquén
By James Nikas May 23, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Part 1

Caption: Argentinosaurus huinculensis

If you like a little adventure in your travels, why not try dinosaur hunting in Patagonia’s Neuquén Province? Patagonia’s very name conjures images of explorers braving dangers in search of lost cities or new trade routes or seeking answers to questions about the origins of life. For me, the promise of seeing the Argentine dinosaurs was sufficient incentive for my recent trip. I invited my goddaughter, Mandela, to join me. We flew to Buenos Aires and bought two bus tickets for Neuquén, the provincial capital of the northernmost Patagonian province of the same name.

As our bus rambled along Ruta Nacional 22, we encountered a magnificent storm. Eventually, we crossed the Rio Negro and the Rio Limay; both rivers flow from the Andes in the west to the Atlantic in the east. About 100 million years ago the landscape was very different. The Andes did not exist, the great continent of Gondwana was breaking apart rapidly and there was tremendous volcanic activity. Levels of carbon dioxide were higher than at present, perhaps by a factor of 10, and temperatures were perhaps 20°F warmer. The name given to this era is the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum. The warmer temperatures meant there was less ice on the planet and the sea level was at an estimated 400 to 600 feet higher than today. In the area of Neuquén, rivers flowed east to west, the opposite of their path today, and lush forests burst with flowering plants and trees, nearly the opposite of the desert-like steppe of present northwestern Patagonia. The lush environs of the Cretaceous helped set the stage for the evolution of some mighty big dinosaurs.

As we pulled into Neuquén’s bus station we were blasted by freezing gusts of wind and blinding sand. In Buenos Aires it was 90°F, but in Neuquén a chill had blown in from the Andes and people were bundled up. We threw on our cold weather gear, shielded our eyes and headed off to find the Hotel El Prado. From this base camp our first destination would be the oil town of Plaza Huincul, about 104 kilometers west of Neuquén. It is the home of the Museo Carmen Funes, which houses what is billed as the biggest dinosaur in the world.

Caption: Shrine to Guachito Gil

Fifty kilometers out of Neuquén we came upon our first shrine to Gaucho Gil. Antonio Gil, so one story goes, was born during the 1840s in the area of Corrientes. He was executed on January 8, 1878, by federal soldiers for deserting after he refused to fight against his own brethren during the Argentine civil uprisings of 1876. At his execution he promised to intercede in heaven on behalf of those in need. Some say that prayers to him have cured sickness and helped people find true love, or even a new car. One thing is for sure: today he is venerated by tens of thousands and his legend is spreading. I pulled the car over and we got out to pay our respects at El Guachito’s red shrine.

As we stepped out of the car, I scanned the geology. After years of field work it is almost instinctive. “Watch out for bones,” I cautioned Mandela. “This green and yellow sandstone and the outcrops of rock here might belong to the late Cretaceous Huincul Formation. It might be the same rock formation in which Argentinosaurus huinculensis was discovered.” Since Mandela is a vegetarian, I thought it fitting to visit the site where the world’s largest known herbivore species, Argentinosaurus huinculensis, was discovered by an oil field worker in 1997.

“How do we know Argentinosaurus looked like that?” Mandela asked. “There can’t be more than 20 bones that they’ve found.” “Good question. The present is the key to the past,” I replied. “We study the animals we know today and make comparisons, interpretations and reconstructions. Sometimes we are wrong in what we reconstruct. Maybe the model does not look exactly like the real animal. Paleontology is a very evolutionary field; fortunately, we can revise as we learn and in the process we discover things about life in the past that no one knew before. We may even learn about how life will evolve, and that may be especially useful if the rapid warming of the Earth continues.”

Argentinosaurus huinculensis is one of the biggest animals ever to walk the planet. Some of its dorsal vertebrae are over five feet in length. It is estimated that adults weighed 80 to 100 tons and grew to lengths over 115 feet. The bones were clearly specialized to support such weight. The whole skeletal frame, with its corresponding muscles, tendons and ligaments, has been likened to a giant living suspension bridge. We stood under the skeleton and imagined a herd of them walking through a forest. How did they communicate? Did they have infrasound, like elephants? Maybe they bobbed their heads like the birds and lizards of today. It was awe-inspiring.

In addition to its dinosaurs, Plaza Huincul is also central to Argentina’s oil and gas production. Today, Neuquén Basin alone supplies about 38% of Argentina’s oil and is the site of 50% of its gas production, most of it derived from Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments. Somewhere around 60% of the world’s known oil and gas is from Cretaceous rocks. There is a nice exhibit on the history of petroleum exploration at the museum. Dozens of oil wells can be seen gently rocking away along Ruta Nacional 22. There are more oil reserves to be discovered and, of course, more dinosaurs. Looking out across the steppe landscape it is easy to envision an abundance of little arroyos and outcrops constantly weathering away to reveal fossil remains.

One of the world’s biggest carnivores, Giganotosaurus carolinii, was discovered by Ruben Carolini about 80 minutes away near Villa El Chocón.

Today, those bones, nearly 80% of the 46-foot-long skeleton, can be seen at the Museo Paleontologico Municipal Ernesto Bachmann in the little town of Villa El Chocón. The museum also contains a laboratory, and we were given a personal tour of the facility by Juan Ignacio Canales, who runs the lab.

Some people look at an ancient ocean contained in a hillside and see only a pile of dirt, but I see layers of sediment like pages of a book, each with a potentially fabulous mystery to be solved or perhaps a future foretold with each turn of the page. It is that same interest that fuels one person’s ability to observe and discover what another person might step on or over. Inside the Ernesto Bachman lab we were treated to a view of a new discovery. Juan Canale showed us an 11-foot-long, 8-foot-wide plaster-encased pod that contained the remains of a new dinosaur genus discovered in the field of a local rancher. Two months of excavation and a crane allowed the six-ton, nearly complete skeleton to be removed and brought to the lab for study.

Since the skeleton is so complete, there is a reasonable chance that its stomach may contain evidence of its last meals and we might learn something about what and how it ate. As we were talking, Juan told us that just two days earlier the rancher who had discovered the dinosaur had been murdered. When he publishes the discovery, he intends to honor the man who found it by naming the dinosaur after him.


To be continued in next week’s edition of Atención.

Jim Nikas is a native San Franciscan who divides his time between that city and San Miguel de Allende. He is a paleontologist and geologist and works as a business consultant.

Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell

Airlines

More checked bag fees 

The lone holdout among the network carriers, American Airlines, said that on May 12 it would join the competition and start charging US$25 for a second checked bag. The fee will apply to all coach passengers except those on full-fare tickets and those with elite status in the AAdvantage frequent-flier program.

The Alaska Air Group, which operates Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air, said it would also start charging US$25 for a second checked bag starting this summer. The fee for an overweight bag will double, to US$50, and the extra fee for an unaccompanied minor will rise to US$75 from US$30. 



International News

Israel marks 60th anniversary

On May 7, the eve of the 60th anniversary of its rebirth in 1948, Israelis celebrated with a countrywide series of shows. The 12-minute spectacles lighted up the skies above Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdod, Netanya, Beersheba, Tiberias and Eilat with elaborate fireworks, laser-light displays and celebratory music. 

Arie Sommer, Israel Tourism Commissioner for North and South America, noted that in 2007 more Americans visited Israel than in any year in the nation’s history and for the first months of 2008 tourism is up 51 percent. 

Sources: Magic of Mexico, Mexican Tourism News, The New York Times, Travel Agent 

Judy Newell, a writer and travel industry executive, heads the custom tour company Perfect Journeys. Contact her at JudyNewell_03@msn.com  or go to her website www.PerfectJourneys.net.  

Baja’s Loreto Bay Resort targets Americans

If the vision of the Mexican government and an American developer is realized, a decade from now, Loreto Bay will include 6,000 homes, from small condos to custom houses, most of them owned by American retirees or part-time residents. Residents will travel about their villages on foot, by bicycle or in electric-powered golf carts, moving over flagstone streets purposely made too narrow for automobiles. The master plan includes not only solar-heated hot water, but a seawater desalination plant and a 500-acre wind farm.

Loreto has a history with the Mexican tourism agency which targeted it for development in the seventies, along with Los Cabos, Ixtapa and Cancún. In Loreto’s case, the government put about US$200 million into roads, water, sewers, electricity and a small airport, then promptly seemed to forget about the area as Los Cabos and Cancún began to blossom.


Hotel group adds eight properties in Mexico

Preferred Hotel Group recently added eight new member properties to their portfolio in Mexico, which now totals 24 hotels from ultra luxurious to intimate havens, from convention destinations to smart values. Mexico is a growth market, according to Susan Devine, managing director for Latin America and the Caribbean. “Preferred Hotel Group is focused on expanding our presence in Mexico,” she said. 

The new members are Casa Dorada in Cabo San Lucas, El Mundo Imperial in Acapulco, the Bel Air Collection in Cancun, Buenaventura Grand Hotel & Spa in Puerto Vallarta, Aura Cozumel Resort and two Riviera Cancun “Secrets”: Maroma Beach and Silversands. 

The eighth new member is La Puertecita Boutique Hotel in San Miguel, set within a private park surrounded by gardens, waterfalls and trees. The hotel opened in 1990 with eight special rooms and now has 28 rooms and suites. Colonial architecture combines with sculpted stone-framed windows, colorful furnishings and a traditional warm Mexican atmosphere. Some rooms have private patios and fireplaces. The restaurant offers traditional Mexican dishes and international cuisine on the terrace or private patios. La Palapa tree-house overlooks a 300-year-old aqueduct and is designed for private idylls.