Plaza Huincul is a small

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

in Neuquen province, with a population of around 13,000 people, located in southwestern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. It is approximately south-west from the capital, Buenos Aires. Plaza Huincul is located in the middle of the desert and grew due to an oil discovery in the area in 1918. It is said that the largest fossils in the world are found there; for example, the Argentinosaurs. Plaza Huincul has an oil & gas refinery that belongs to YPF, an Argentinian oil company and it shares various common factors with the city of Cutral Có (mostly with its paleontological tourism). One of the most important roads in the province go through Plaza Huincul: National Road Number 22. Its economy is mainly around oil & gas services. There is a growing number of farms that raise sheep and goats

History

The area around what is Plaza Huincul today was first seen in 1876 during the "Desert Campaign". In 1876, a Chilean man by the surname of Campos and his wife Carmen Funes (known as "Pastoverde", translating into green grass) are said to be the ones who first settled into Plaza Huincul and welcomed travelers in case they needed a break; for example, the Pehuenches and Mapuches tribes. They later permanently lived in Plaza Huincul. Plaza Huincul stands for Plaza of the hills. The town grew rapidly when on 13 September 1918,

YPF YPF S.A. (, formerly ; English: "Fiscal Oilfields") is a vertically integrated, majority state-owned Argentine energy company, engaged in oil and gas exploration and production, and the transportation, refining, and marketing of gas and petr ...

took employees to Plaza Huincul to work on the first oil rig for YPF (Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales). Plaza Huincul then inaugurated a train station on 20 November 1921. A reminder of this is still in place today as a big arch showing the entrance to YPF camp. On 1 February 1967 Plaza Huincul became a Municipality (city).

Paleontology

The municipality gave its name to the

Huincul Formation The Huincul Formation is a geologic formation of Late Cretaceous ( Early Cenomanian to Late Turonian) age of the Neuquén Basin that outcrops in the Mendoza, Río Negro and Neuquén Provinces of northern Patagonia, Argentina.

, a fossiliferous stratigraphic unit dating back to the

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

stage of the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

. ''

Argentinosaurus ''Argentinosaurus'' is a genus of giant sauropod dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Argentina. Although it is only known from fragmentary remains, ''Argentinosaurus'' is one of the largest known land animals o ...

'', the largest dinosaur found thus far, was discovered in Plaza Huincul by Guillermo Heredia. It is estimated that ''Argentinosaurus'' had a length of and paleontologists have estimated that it may have weighed as much as 75 to 100 tonnes. The ''Argentinosaurus'' was discovered in 1987 by a rancher who mistook the legbone of the dinosaur for petrified wood.

Geography

Topography

Plaza Huincul is in Neuquen province, which is in the western area of

. Plaza Huincul lies upon the coordinates of: 38°55′00″S and 69°09′00″W. Plaza Huincul has an estimated area of 30,000 km² and lies in a relatively flat and low-lying area. The city has been built along the Roads number 17 (Province) and number 22 (National). Road 17 connects Plaza Huincul with Osorno, Chile and even

Bariloche San Carlos de Bariloche, usually known as Bariloche (), is a city in the province of Río Negro Province, Río Negro, Argentina, situated in the foothills of the Andes on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. It is located within the Nahuel ...

. Plaza Huincul is situated around 161 km from international border between Argentina and Chile.

Climate

Plaza Huincul features a

desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

. Temperatures vary throughout the year with an average of 13.1 °C. The hottest month is January with an average of 29 degrees Celsius, where the coldest month is July with an average of 0 degrees Celsius. Plaza Huincul sees low precipitation with an overall value of 157mm per year and around 13mm every month.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Neuquén Province