The White Sands footprints did not emerge from the sediment on a schedule determined by scientific readiness.

They emerged on a schedule determined by the dynamics of the dune field, which has been covering and uncovering the lakebed at its own pace regardless of human scientific activity.

The question was always whether someone would be there, with the right knowledge and methods, when the surfaces appeared.

The alignment of Bustos’s field experience with Bennett’s ichnological expertise and a geochronology team capable of addressing the dating questions was, in that sense, a fortunate coincidence — the right researchers in the right conversation at the right time.

Different researchers, different circumstances, and the significance of the surfaces might not have been recognized for additional years or decades, or might have been noted and not followed up with the intensity the findings ultimately received.

Science, like all human endeavors, is contingent in ways that its formal outputs — the published papers, the confident statements of results — rarely make visible.