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Reuters: Miners Find Dinosaur Eggs in Argentina's Patagonia
From:
Tuesday July 3 8:10 PM ET
Miners Find Dinosaur Eggs
in
Argentina's Patagonia
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Miners in Argentina's
southern
region of Patagonia have stumbled on two nests, each about five
feet
wide, filled with fossilized 70 million-year-old dinosaur eggs,
museum
officials said on Tuesday.
The eggs, between 10 and 11 inches in diameter, were laid by
giant
sauropods -- plant-eating dinosaurs like Brontosaurus -- in Rio
Negro
Province, 620 miles south of Buenos Aires.
``Workers from the (mining) company found the fossilized remains.
We
have just visited the site, and, indeed, it is full of dinosaur eggs.
We
never thought we would find something like this in the area,'' said
Carlos
Munoz, head of the Carlos Ameghino provincial museum, told Reuters.
The nests were discovered last month, but confirmation of the find,
near
the village of Valcheta, came only this week. Investigators did not
give
the exact location, to protect the area from sightseers.
The provincial government plans to turn the site into a natural
museum
where visitors can see the fossils exactly where they have lain
for
millions of years.
Discoveries of fossilized dinosaurs are relatively common in
Argentina,
especially in Patagonia. An herbivorous Argentinosaurus discovered
in
1990 was one of the largest dinosaurs ever found, estimated to
weigh
between 80 and 100 tonnes.
Don Lamson
mailto:dllamson@qwest.net
509.456.0658