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Journey in Search of Dinosaurs |
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By By Viviana Alonso*
Tourists and hobbyists pay for the chance to dig up Triassic-era fossils, and in the process help preserve the stark, spectral natural park in Ischigualasto, northwest Argentina.
BUENOS AIRES - Any volunteer willing to put up 1,910 dollars and travel costs can be part of a paleontology expedition at Argentina's Ischigualasto Park, which could hold the secret to the origins of dinosaurs and even of mammals.
The park, in the northwestern Argentine province of San Juan, is a moonscape: inhospitable and spectral, blasted by winds that carve strange figures into the land.
But Ischigualasto, also known as Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), is known for something that is quite down-to-earth: the emergence of fossils of the ancestors of dinosaurs, which inhabited the planet 230 million years ago, during what is known as the Triassic period.
"The importance of the Ischigualasto basin lies in the fact that three groups of animals come together there: those that gave rise to dinosaurs, the ancestors of the crocodile and the predecessors of mammals," paleontologist Oscar Alcober, of Argentina's National University of San Juan (UNSJ), explained to Tierramérica.
"The existence of these three groups is documented in Ischigualasto more than in any part of the world," he added.
The area is considered so important for knowledge of the origin and evolution of reptiles and mammals that it is recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).
The panorama there is dominated by the various colors of rock, and is marked by ravines and outcroppings. Guanacos, foxes, pumas and condors are some of the inhabitants of the desert today, which 230 million years ago was a fertile plain covered by lush vegetation.
In 1990, Alcober and his colleagues Ricardo Martínez and Guillermo Heredia needed funds in order to maintain the ongoing excavations in Ischigualasto, because the harsh erosion process, which uncovered the fossils, also destroys them within a decade. To be preserved, the fossils need to be removed.
By chance they made contact with the U.S.-based Earthwatch Institute, and in 1994, with Earthwatch financing, the Triassic Park project was launched.
"As the Earthwatch campaign has unfolded, more than 300 fossils have been recovered, including some exceptional formations and materials. Thanks to those findings, Argentina today holds one of the world's leading Triassic-era collections," said Alcober.
The South American country possesses fossils of the small eoraptor predator (Eoraptor lunensis), one of the early dinosaurs, measuring no more than 1.2 meters long and 35 cm to the pelvis. And the Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, a predator reaching four meters in length. Then there are the early fossils of young rincosaurs (Scaphonix sanjuanensis), small reptiles that are the most abundant vertebrate at the Ischigualasto dig.
Earthwatch works with volunteers who are interested in hands-on experience involving projects like this one.
"It is exciting and meaningful to unearth bones of animals from the Triassic in order to complete the records of these fossils," says Marjorie Siegal, a retired journalist from the eastern U.S. state of Virginia, who participated in the dig in 2001.
To take part in a two-week expedition, volunteers travel to San Juan, where they work under the orders of Alcober and his colleagues. The enthusiasts are trained to find fossils, mark their location, remove the fossils without damaging them and prepare them to be shipped -- wrapping them in aluminum foil and covering them with plaster.
Except for transport within the province of San Juan and the food at the camp, all expenses are paid by the volunteers themselves, who also must adapt to living in tents in the desert, with its extreme temperatures, and without electricity or running water.
In the eight volunteer campaigns conducted so far, the program drew more than 120 volunteers from all over the world. The ninth is set to begin Aug. 31.
"We volunteers contribute to conservation by letting the world know, through our work and money, that we value what this area has to offer," Mary Rowe, from the U.S. city of Boston and participant in at least 20 Earthwatch expeditions, said in a conversation with Tierramérica.
Argentine Rodolfo Lomascolo, owner of a computer technology firm in Madrid, volunteered at the dig with his wife in 2001 and 2002. He noted that with each fossil uncovered one could connect with the earth's prehistoric past.
The project could not survive without the volunteers, says Alcober. "Last year, when Argentina's economic crisis drastically cut the university budgets, we turned to former volunteers, and it was they who provided the money so that we could continue working."
* Viviana Alonso is an IPS contributor.
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