When the Ice Was Green and Growing

Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program November 10, 2002 Where science Dressed for town When the Ice goes shopping was green and growing By Mark Sabbatini Sun staff Antarctica’s warmer, The atmosphere is sort of not gentler, past Costco meets Bob’s Country Market. By Kristan Hutchison A quaint bell jingles as people Sun staff enter and are greeted by the store’s Long, long ago, back when sole employee. Shopping baskets Antarctica was a warm place, a are stacked near the first of several hungry dinosaur choked on his din- short aisles of mostly familiar gro- ner, which happened to be another ceries. Customers pick cans of dinosaur his same size. yams and boxes of instant oatmeal Imagine the preceding battle — off shelves one at a time — but here The 22-foot cryolophosaurus stand- they keep picking. And picking. ing nearly upright on his two sturdy At checkout time there’s no back legs while he ripped at the “paper or plastic”dilemma. Instead peace-loving, plant-eating prosaura- shoppers load what may be thou- pod with his sharp teeth and front sands of pounds of goods into claws. The prosaurapod, slightly triple-walled cardboard crates, bigger at 25-feet-long, but without which often are destined to be enough defenses, trying to escape thrown out of planes as they taxi as they splash together into a river down ice runways. bed running red with his blood. Thanks for shopping at the Victorious, cryolophosaurus Berg Field Center Food Room at dined in earnest, tearing large bites McMurdo Station. Have a nice from his prey. Only he should have day. chewed a little better, because part The store, tucked into the sec- of a leg stuck in his throat and he ond floor of a cargo building, is died there in the riverbed. where scientists and others work- There they lay, predator and ing at remote sites stock up on prey, while smaller dinosaurs scav- supplies before heading out to the enged their bodies. There they field. What’s on the shelves may Photo by Melanie Conner/The Antarctic Sun stayed as the world slowly cooled need to feed a few people or a This well-dressed visitor hangs out along the road to McMurdo’s and ice covered the continent. dozen, for one week or six, and be ice runway, delighting passers-by. He seemed unconcerned by There they were when 200 million suitable for cooking equipment the audience he drew last week, falling asleep while paparazzi years later geologist David Elliot ranging from backpacking stoves snapped shutters around him. For most of the gawkers it was the spotted a bone sticking up as he to reasonably modern kitchens. first penguin they’ve ever seen. “This made my Antarctic experi- looked for rocks in the But McMurdo residents with a ence complete,” said Frank Abbatecola, a Summit County, Transantarctic Mountains. Colo., resident at McMurdo Station for his second season. Another Adelie penguin was spotted by the ice pier Friday. See Grocery on page 10 See Paleo on page 6 INSIDE Quote of the Week Le’go the AGO; Following Scott, remote power for a few miles “You haven’t lived until you’ve crossed the Drake Passage.” switch Page 3 Page 9 — IT worker who’s spent seasons at all three stations, including Palmer www.polar.org/antsun 6 • The Antarctic Sun November 10, 2002 Looking back ~ 750 million years ago Antarctica and North America connected. ~500 million years ago Antarctica is at the Earth’s equator. ~245 million years ago Synapsids, an evolutionary link between reptiles and mammals, coexist in Antarctica with giant amphibians, some with heads at least three feet long. The synapsids come in a wide variety of both plant- and meat-eaters, ranging from cat-size to cow-size. ~190 million years ago Dinosaurs live in Antarctica, including vari- eties common in North Photo illustration by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic Sun Looking at an ice-covered landscape, it’s difficult to imagine the forests once growing in Antarctica. In America and the this illustration, drawings of three trees found by paleobiologists Tom and Edith Taylor are superimposed Crylophosaurus ellioti, over typical Antarctic scenery. meaning “frozen-crested lizard,” which hasn’t been found elsewhere. Paleo From page 1 Elliot radioed William Hammer, a paleontolo- ice sheets appears about 35 million years ago. ~180 million years ago gist working further down Mt. Kirkpatrick. “The current situation is the thing that’s Antarctica is in the high Hammer dug up the dinosaur bones, piecing abnormal in terms of geological history,” said latitudes, with a quarter of together the story of the cryolophosaurus’ last Scott Borg, National Science Foundation pro- the continent inside the meal. He found the prosaurapod leg and foot gram manager for Antarctic Geology and Antarctic Circle. bones stuck in the meat-eater’s jaw and throat. Geophysics. “The world was a much warmer, The scavenging dinosaurs had left tooth marks - much different place.” ~ 65 million years ago and a few teeth - in cryolophosaurus’ legs. For much of that time Antarctica wasn’t cen- Antarctica is near its cur- The cryolophosaurus, or “frozen-crested tered on the South Pole, but sat partially outside rent polar position and lizard,” turned out to be a whole new species and the Antarctic Circle. At the time cryolophosaurus dinosaurs go extinct glob- an important find in the evolution of early car- choked on his last meal in what would become ally. nivorous dinosaurs, Hammer said. It was about the Transantarctic Mountains, he was living 40 million years older than the next dinosaur in around 65 to 70 degrees south latitude. Now the ~ 35 million years ago its evolutionary line. Antarctic Peninsula sits at that latitude. First evidence of the That and other discoveries of fossil remains By 65 million years ago Antarctica was near Antarctic ice sheet. After have helped puzzle together what Antarctica was its present position inside the Antarctic Circle. that the ice sheets wax and like before it froze over. Hammer has found ani- “Things were substantially different, but wane. mals living at three different time periods, from there were still prolonged periods of very short pre-mammals and giant amphibians living 245 days in the winter and very short nights in the ~ 30 million years ago A million years ago to the dinosaurs 200 million summer,” Borg said. “Whatever ecosystems current of water begins to year ago. The amphibians are evidence that were there had to adjust to those sort of seasonal circle Antarctica, isolating Antarctica was once warmer, Hammer said. changes in the light.” it from the warmer waters They weren’t migratory and couldn’t have sur- For most of that time Antarctica would have and climates to the north. vived if the water froze in the winter. been green, not white. Lush forests of ginkgo, “We envision sort of a cool, temperate climate ancient conifers, ferns and moss supplied habitat ~15-17 million years ago kind of thing, kind of like coastal Oregon or and food for the animals and birds. The Antarctic ice sheets Washington today,” Hammer said. “It was too Paleobiologists Tom and Edith Taylor found become permanent, corre- high latitude to be hot, but winters weren’t all forests of fossilized tree stumps still standing in sponding with the begin- that harsh.” the Transantarctic Mountains. Near the ning of global cooling. Antarctica has been at a near polar latitude for Beardmore Glacier a ghost forest of 99 stumps more than 120 million years, but it didn’t get stand erect, some still a foot and a half tall and up ~ 1.8 million years ago cold until 40 million years ago. Before then, the to 2 feet in diameter. The northern hemisphere Earth is thought to have been an average of 10 ice sheets develop. degrees warmer. The first evidence of Antarctic See Paleo on page 7 .

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