SCIENCE NEWS
March 15, 2004
A Double Dinosaur Discovery
Two surprising fossil finds are unearthed in Antarctica
 The pelvis of a previously unknown plant-eating dinosaur is exposed. |
Last December, two research teams working thousands of miles apart in Antarctica made equally amazing discoveries. Each unearthed the fossilized remains of what is believed to be a new species of dinosaur. One is an herbivore, or plant eater, and the other is a carnivore, or meat eater.
 |  A research team at work on James Ross Island near the Antarctica Peninsula where carnivorous dinosaur was found. |
Working separately, the teams, led by scientists James Martin and William Hammer, found the fossils less than a week apart. They celebrated over satellite phones. "There we were, in the middle of Antarctica, talking to Bill about his find 2,000 miles away," Martin told TFK. "It was mind-boggling." On February 26, the National Science Foundation, which funded the research, announced the incredible double discoveries.
Frozen in Time
Near Beardmore Glacier, Hammer's team found the bones of what
they think is a plant-eating sauropod that lived 200 million
years ago, during the Jurassic period. Martin's find, on an
island off the Antarctic Peninsula, is a type of theropod, a
group that includes the tyrannosaur. The meat eater lived in the
Cretaceous period, around 70 million years ago. This is only the
sixth fossil find in Antarctica from that period.
Each discovery will give scientists a new glimpse into the age of dinosaurs. Any fossil find in Antarctica is rare, because bones and other remains are frozen and buried under many layers of ice. But finding two on the continent in the same week was unheard of--until now. "We know very little about life in Antarctica from this particular time period," Martin says, "so we have a lot to learn."
Excavating the fossils is just the beginning. The scientists will now start a yearlong process to analyze the bits of teeth and bone. "It's a detective story," Martin says. "You take all these bits of evidence and reconstruct the past."
For the scientist, this is a dream come true. "After reading a book on dinosaurs in the third grade, I decided that I would work on fossils," says Martin. "And here I am, working on the most unique dinosaur ever found in the world's southernmost continent."
