Rock-It Cargo :: Sixteen Tons of Dinosaur Bones And What Do You Get?

More than sixteen tons of dinosaur bones, some massive, arrived in Philadelphia in early May after five years of excavation by Drexel University professor of biology, Dr. Kenneth Lacovara, and his students. The fossils, belonging to the second largest dinosaur ever discovered, were uncovered in the remote southern-most region of Patagonia, Argentina. Rock It Cargo handled the priceless and delicate shipment identified as the remains of a sauropod dinosaur dating back sixty five million years.

Transporting the dinosaur bones from the dig site to Philadelphia was difficult. However, it was the red tape of Argentinean bureaucracy that presented the most daunting challenge. While the transit time from the town of El Calafate, where the bones were stored, to Philadelphia was little more than one month, the fossils were in storage for two years pending receipt of the government permits required to export them to the U.S. The family of one of Dr. Lacovara’s students kept the bones in a barn after they were painstakingly wrapped in burlap and encased in plaster for safekeeping.

Every phase of the shipment was regulated and monitored by the government of Argentina. Because of the irreplaceable value of fossils such as these, permission is required from a seemingly endless group of entities including the Argentinean museum that is sponsoring the project, the town where the fossils are discovered, the regional governor, the regional customs authorities, the Department of Antiquities in Buenos Aires, the Argentinean Ministry and customs authorities in the port of export. Each entity required a different procedure and documents for obtaining the permits

The physical movement of the dinosaur bones was a study in ingenuity. A forty-foot ocean container was delivered to the loading site where the plaster-encased fossils were loaded by hand into the container. Over time, ancient fossils petrify into rock and become embedded in the surrounding stone. After Lacovara’s team removed the bones from the earth still encased in rock, they were sheathed in burlap and plaster to resist the shock of transport. The resulting sections weighed hundreds of pounds each. More than two hundred thirty pieces were floor loaded and stacked amid rubber tires into the container without the use of heavy lifting equipment under the supervision of a customs official who was flown in from Buenos Aires.

All dinosaur bones must be returned to the country of origin. Lacovara’s sauropod is on loan from the government of Argentina to Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences labs, the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The bones will be removed from the rock, cleaned and analyzed using the latest advances in scientific technology. When the study is finished, the bones will be returned to Argentina and a replica of the assembled creature will be on display at the Rio Gallegos Museum in Argentina.

Rock It Cargo’s Grace Warner was the project manager on this and other dinosaur moves. Her experience with transporting dinosaur fossils dates back to the early 1990s. Her frequent client is Dr. Paul Sereno, premier paleontologist, professor at the University of Chicago and resident explorer for the National Geographic Society. Warner has moved dinosaur bones from remote locations all over the world but none has been as challenging as the sauropod from Argentina. “I have shipped bones from as far away as Morocco, Niger, Egypt, China and Mongolia and I have to say that this move from Argentina was the most difficult and took the longest,” she says. Warner first began working on the project in April of 2005.

Sixteen Tons of Dinosaur And What Do You Get?