Dinosaur Graveyard as Tourist Draw

[Judi Lynn]

Dinosaur Graveyard as Tourist Draw
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: March 4, 2008

LAKE BARREALES, Argentina — As Jorge Calvo strode along the dusty banks of this Patagonian lake, he scanned the reddish dirt, pointing to the remains of a dinosaur in the desert sun.

Continuing on, he scampered down into an eight-foot pit and waved to Marcela Milani, a technician working with a thick nail and a hammer. She was chipping away at a rock looking for a missing hip bone believed to be part of Mr. Calvo’s most famous discovery, Futalognkosaurus, a new genus of plant-eating dinosaur more than 100 feet long from tail to nose. It is one of the three biggest dinosaurs ever found.

“That one lived nearly 90 million years ago,” said Mr. Calvo, an Argentine geologist and paleontologist. “We are full of dinosaurs here. If you walk, you will find something.”

Mr. Calvo, 46, has his office here, at a year-round excavation of fossils from this vast dinosaur graveyard. He is not pursuing the traditional academic path of paleontologists, collecting in the field for distant museums. After discovering the Futalognkosaurus bones in 2000, he set up shop here two years later along this placid artificial lake lined on one side by deep red rock formations that look strikingly similar to those in Sedona, Ariz.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/science/04dino.html?ref=world