Antarctica does not immediately come to mind when thinking about places to go to hunt dinosaur fossils, but there are seven dinosaur species known from the continent that sits over the south pole.
Geological expeditions to Antarctica are of course limited by the continental ice sheet that covers 99% of the land surface, and exposures of potential fossil-bearing rock are limited to exposures along the coastlines and on mountain slopes, so the full extent of Antarctica’s fossil treasures may never be known.
Of course, the continent was not entombed in ice when the dinosaurs roamed Antarctica’s landscape; although Antarctica has been sitting at its polar latitude for the last hundred million years, and dinosaurs would have had to adapt to six months of darkness, the climate during the Cretaceous Period was warmer, and Antarctica hosted cycads, palms and ginkos.
Photo Credit: Nathan Smith. Caption: Kevin Kruger, Peter Barrett and Nathan Smith (from left) excavate dinosaur bones in 2003-04 on Mount Kirkpatrick. http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/antarcticsun/science/images/dinosaur%20excavation.jpg
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