Dinosaur Fossils in Antarctica :: Anthropology Essays Paleontology Papers

Dinosaur Fossils in Antarctica Millions and millions of years ago the continents lay together as one super-continent known as Pangea. As time went on and the plates underneath the Earth began to separate, the continents land moved towards the poles where glaciation occurred. Glaciation is the process in which glaciers were formed during the ice age. Glaciation causes a drop in temperature which in turn causes water to freeze and form many layers of ice (http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/intro.html, 1). Due to this layering of ice that has occurred at both poles it has not been easy to discover new dinosaur fossils. However, in a press release of the National Science Foundation researchers, working in two distinct sites of Antarctica found what seem to be fossil remains of two different dinosaurs that had previously never been introduced to the world of science (http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/newsroom/pr.cfm?ni=52, 1). The two different dinosaurs were found in opposite areas of Antarctica. The first dinosaur found was uncovered on the James Ross Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula while the second dinosaur was discovered on the Antarctic interior on a mountain elevating nearly 3900 meters near the Beardmore Glacier. The discovery of these two dinosaurs was important for a couple reasons. First off, dealing with the dinosaur carnivorous dinosaur found off the James Ross Island the discovery was important was because not many dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Time Period had been uncovered in Antarctica. The second reason the finding of this fossil was important was because in the James Ross region of the Antarctic Peninsula there had previously only been six uncovered dinosaur fossils and this finding adds to that number. Lastly, it is a very uncommon to find a dinosaur that was so well preserved considering it died roughly 70 million years ago. In order for it to be in such good shap e it had to float out to sea and lie in the bottom of what was then an extremely shallow part of the Weddell Sea (www.sciencedaily.com, 2). When it comes to the plant-eating dinosaur found on the interior of Antarctica the discovery of this dinosaur was also important because of its rarity. William Hammer, who led the research team said from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois said, â€Å"This site is so far removed geographically from any site near its age, it’s clearly a new dinosaur to Antarctica.