Due to long histories of favourable climatic and geological conditions, North America and Asia were previously considered the primary sources of dinosaur information, however recent discoveries of literally ´epic proportions´ in the Argentinian province of Neuquen since turned the paleontological industry upside down, making Patagonia arguably the richest place for finding preserved fossils in the world today.
The existence of the Andes range, due to a forced collision of tectonic plates ´lifting´ South America up from the Atlantic and simultaneously pushing the heavier Pacific Ocean down, has lead to even the smallest, most primitive ocean life dating hundreds of millions of years being found high on mountain slopes. The flatter, desert Patagonian steppe to the west however has revealed much larger animals including many species of dinosaur from the early Jurassic and later Cretaceous periods with Argentina laying claim to the largest species ever discovered; carnivore Gigantosaurus at a monstrous 15m in length and herbivore Argentinosaurus at a massive 40.
The small dusty town of El Chocon, site of the excavated ¨Gigantosaurus Carolinii¨ by a local auto-mechanic/dino-enthusiast, was our next destination of interest and despite a total lack of developed tourism and poor Spanish skills we learnt that excavation work had since uncovered more ground breaking discoveries, including 105 million year-old, well preserved dinosaur footprints beside the Exequiel Ramos Mexia Lake, just 3 kms out of town.Luckily after many days of bad weather in the Northern Lake District around famed Volcan Lanin and the town of ´St Martin de Los Andes´ we were met by flawless blue sky and light gusty winds across the desert landscape of El Chocon, and the area proved an interesting resting point for our next big destination; the sun-kissed wine country of Mendoza.
