# Antarctica: Fossils under the Ice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566 "2007-03-04T19:35:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![neorxnawange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f4b2a3/32.png) [@neorxnawange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neorxnawange)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/1 "2007-03-04T19:35:28Z")
So Antarctica was once a part of the big super continent that broke up into the continents we have today. And Antarctica must have had several millions of years of warmer climate, obviously not covered in ice. So are there unique branches of life that evolved and thrived on Antarctica and then died off when the continent froze over? Have scientists been able to even search for this stuff considering the continent is just about completely covered in ice? Could there be some fossils of undiscovered taxonomic branches waiting under the ice? What era would this have been? ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/2 "2007-03-04T21:43:42Z")
[QUOTE=neorxnawange] are there unique branches of life that evolved and thrived on Antarctica and then died off when the continent froze over? [/QUOTE] Dunno if it qualifies as a unique branch of life, but this [link](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0309_040309_polardinos.html) describes fossils of two previously unknown dinosaur species found in Antarctica. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/3 "2007-03-04T22:13:47Z")
I remember years ago seeing an article in National Geographic that showed fossils of some dino-type critter that was only found in Antarctica and India. The fact that the same beastie was found in such different regions was one of the bits of proof for the theory of continental drift. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/4 "2007-03-04T22:33:04Z")
[Australia’s largest Antarctic fossil collection at Monash](http://www.monash.edu.au/news/monashmemo/stories/20051012/fossils.html) > [@](#): > > The collection of more than 1000 fossils features invertebrates (including shells with their original mother-of-pearl still intact), leaves and partial tree trunks, remains of giant penguins, vertebrae and teeth of large marine reptiles such as Plesiosaurs, and a 65-centimetre-long skull cast of a meat-eating Therapod dinosaur. > The fossils are mostly between 40 and 70 million years old. I looked around the Monash U website, but did not find a geology museum museum page. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/5 "2007-03-05T03:48:08Z")
Antarctica is unlikely to have had much in the line of _endemic_ higher taxa, since it was pretty much at the heart of Gondwanaland, and the overwhelming majority of orders, families, etc., were in place by the time it became an island continent. (It’s been icecovered for about 15 million years, though no doubt it was not much of a tropical vacation paradise beforehand – Tierra del Fuego, Kerguelen Island, South Georgia, etc., are not noted for their pleasant climate, which would parallel what it would have had before the icecap formed. However, there are a **lot** of potential fossils under the ice – just from what is known from outcrops rising above the ice, the Glossopteris flora, Lystrosaurus (a rhynchosaur), and a few other of the key markers of Gondwanaland were discovered there. In fact, it was those finds that were essentially the turning point in the acceptance of continental drift among orthodox geologists. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/6 "2007-03-05T07:12:47Z")
What **Polycarp** said. A lot of South African Karroo fossils - the _Glossopteris_ plants, the Synapsids (mammal-like reptiles),etc are also known from Antarctic finds. One quibble, though, **Poly** - _Lystrosaurus_ is a synapsid not a rynchosaur. Seen a few of the buggers locally. Once, _in situ_. Cute, though, like a Sabre-toothed Staffordshire Terrier in the latest reconstructions. Also, the continent is not completely covered in ice. Parts of it (the “dry valleys”, IIRC) are relatively snow-free and scoured clean by high winds. Plus there are fossiliferous bits that poke out of the ice as mountains. Like that found by the Pabodie expedition of '30-'31. ---
**Author:** ![Staggerlee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/staggerlee/32/3134_2.png) [@Staggerlee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Staggerlee)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/7 "2007-03-05T09:33:21Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] It’s been icecovered for about 15 million years… [/QUOTE] Does that mean there could be whole animals frozen deep in the ice from back then, in the same way mammoths have been found deep frozen in Siberia? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/8 "2007-03-05T16:39:37Z")
Well, the ice isn’t stable for that long. If flows slowly from the center of the continent out to the oceans, and there are periodic alternating warm and cold spells that will melt and refreeze the ice. And there would have to be creatures living on the ice in order for them to get frozen in the ice. Given that animals need food to live, there aren’t any animals that live on continental glaciers. The mammoths that are found frozen weren’t wandering over glaciers. Anyway, there’s a big difference between being frozen for a few thousand years and being frozen for a few million years. ---
**Author:** ![neorxnawange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f4b2a3/32.png) [@neorxnawange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neorxnawange)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/9 "2007-03-05T17:08:02Z")
I had no idea really. I figured that the continent was formed so long ago that it would have had a much less diverse and developed set of organisms. There were dinosaurs on what is now Antarctica at one time? Fascinating. Were there also mammals there? Can anyone suggest a book on this subject? (One that a layman could enjoy). ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/10 "2007-03-05T17:39:33Z")
**Mr Dibble** is of course correct – _Lystrosaurus_ was a cynodont synapsid (“mammal-like reptile”), not a rhynchosaur. The finds at Coalsack Bluff in the Transantarctic Mountains, however, included a number of Triassic species including a rhynchosaur, which like _Lystrosaurus_ has “sabre teeth” – in this case, however, formed of the frontal bone of the upper jaw, not teeth. These are of Early Triassic age – somewhat less than 250 million years back. In reference to the question about mammals, I found an interesting bit of information that said that marsupials, edentates, and notoungulates had been found on the Antarctic Peninsula dating about 40 million years back. The marsupials were members of the extinct family _Polydolopidae_, which is typically South American rather than Australian, and the edentates and notoungulates are of course typical elements of Tertiary South American faunas. The comment was that this find supports a theory that marsupials evolved in North America, spread into South America and radiated there, and then made their way to Australia across Antarctica before the ice cover formed. (The three continents were touching as close as 50 million years back.) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/11 "2007-03-05T17:56:29Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] The mammoths that are found frozen weren’t wandering over glaciers. [/QUOTE] Right. Frozen animals are generally found in permafrost, not in glacial ice. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2007, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antarctica-fossils-under-the-ice/394566/12 "2007-03-05T22:33:14Z")
Looking up something totally unrelated to this topic on marsupials and following up a hyperlink, I found the following bit of interesting comment on this topic in [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwanatheria): > [@](#): > > Antarctica has more to offer than just marsupials: > > ``` > "The occurrence on Seymour Island of sudamericids, that had become extinct in South America in the Paleocene, also indicates that isolation may have allowed extended survival of this Gondwanan group in the Eocene of Antarctica and the factors that caused their extinction did not affect this continent." (Reguero et al, 2002, p.189) > > ``` > > From the same paper, (p.203): > > ``` > "For the sudamericids, Koenigswald et al. (1999) inferred a semi-aquatic and perhaps a burrowing way of life, similar to that of living beavers. Regarding this, the presence of two Antarctic taxa at Seymour Island (Goin, personal communication, 2000) suggests an important paleoecological constraint related to dietary preference of this group.” > > ``` > > The Antarctic peninsula of the “late Early to latest Eocene” seems to have been a lively place. > > Represented by the fossils and the geological conditions of the La Meseta Formation (dated to about 40 million years ago) suggest a nearby forest populated by a diverse fauna, which had many similarities with the slightly earlier residents of Patagonia; small, arboreal, fruit and insect-eating possums, 10 kg sloths, middle-to-large sized grazers (sparnotheriodontids and Trigonostylops), falcons, ratites (big flightless birds like the rhea) and penguins. At the end of the Eocene the climate seems to have become unsuitable. The paper quoted is M. A. Reguero, A. M. Sergio and S. N. Santillana. (2002) “Antarctic Peninsula and South America (Patagonia) Paleogene terrestrial faunas and environments: biogeographic relationships”. Palaeogeography-Palaeoclimatology-Palaeoecology, 179, pages 189–210.