Antarctica Fossils Have Arrived!

If you’ve been an intrepid reader of the Burke Blog for a while, you have probably heard of Burke Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology Dr. Christian Sidor and his graduate students’ research trip to Antarctica this winter.  Well, we have an update: some fossils from Antarctica have arrived at the Burke Museum! 

The fossils were discovered during Christian’s most recent research trip to Antarctica in Dec. 2010 – Jan. 2011. All of the fossils date from the Triassic era, ranging from 250—240-million-years-old. The research trip yielded three exciting finds; one is a large amphibian skull, which may be a new species. Another is a Lystrosaurus, a relative to mammals. This find is significant because it provides proof of the continental shift that divided the once existing supercontinent Pangaea. The third find is Prolacerta, an early distant relative to the dinosaurs.



Dr. Christian Sidor in Antarctica



Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

Kryostega, Thrinaxodon, Lystrosaurus...oh my!

We've been reporting on the Antarctic fossil expedition that our vertebrate paleontology curator and two of his graduate students are currently part of, and we're getting really excited for them to return to Seattle in a couple of weeks! Once they have a chance to share which fossils they found, we'll definitely post about it on this blog.

You may have watched the video we posted earlier of UW grad students Brandon and Adam describing what their journey to the southern-most continent would be like; in the same recording session, they also talked about why they were going to Antarctica to look for fossils. The second half of the video is a short tour of some of the Antarctic specimens currently in the paleontology collection at the museum (Kryostega! Thrinaxodon! Lystrosaurus!). Take a look:



Posted by: Samantha Porter

Updates from Antarctica

Two weeks ago, a team of paleontologists from the museum began their journey to Antarctica for a two-month fossil hunting expedition. If you missed the video we posted about what the actual trip down to the southern-most continent is like, watch it here.

Well, they made it:

Exiting the plane at McMurdo Station in Antarctica.

The Burke team is joined by scientists from The Field Museum, Augustana College, the University of Alberta, and the Iziko South African Museum. Together, the group is looking for dinosaurs and other fossils in the Transantarctic Mountains.

If you’re curious to know more about what it’s like to conduct field work in such an extreme place as Antarctica, The Field Museum has an excellent expedition website with lots of totally fascinating information about this 2010-11 Antarctic expedition.

I easily got sucked into the site, which includes photos of camp life, dispatches from the field, and more about the fossils that have been found in Antarctica so far. Here are three surprising things I learned from The Field Museum’s expedition site:

• Back in the day (i.e. 250 million years ago), the Earth had no polar ice caps. Antarctica was part of the super-continent Pangaea and was actually temperate in climate, hence the abundance of plant and animal fossils from species that would never survive in polar Antarctica today.

• Of the species found in Antarctica so far, many were wholly new to science, such as the first dinosaur found on the continent, Crylophosaurus.

• Because of the severe cold and altitude, many of the traditional tools used to stabilize fossils (e.g. fossils and glue) don’t work in Antarctica. As a solution, excavators will wrap small fossils in toilet paper to protect them in transit back to the United States.

Before leaving Chicago to meet up with our crew from Seattle in Antarctica, two of the paleontologists from The Field Museum recorded this video about their expedition. Watch it to learn more about what their goals are for this trip:




Find more online at The Field Museum.

Posted by: Julia Swan, Communications




Dinosaurs in Antarctica? – Antarctica Video Report #1 from The Field Museum on Vimeo.

Video: how do you get to Antarctica?

Think your holiday travel plans are extreme? Can you imagine if you were traveling to Antarctica? That's exactly what Burke Museum curator of vertebrate paleontology Christian Sidor and two UW graduate students, Adam Huttonlocker and Brandon Peecock, are doing this Sunday, as they depart for a two-month trip to search for fossils in Antarctica. Along with an intrpeid group of paleontologists and geologists from across the country, the Burke team will explore the rocks of the central Transantarctic Mountains for evidence of ancient life.

So how does one actually get to Antarctica? Unsurprisngly, it's not quite as simple as just booking a flight. I sat down with Adam and Brandon the week before their trip to talk more about what it takes travel to the world's harshest, coldest continent. In this short video, they discuss what it will be like to arrive in Antarctica for the first time:


Stay tuned for more stories from their trip.

Posted by: Samantha Porter, Operations

Burke curator studies new species from Antarctica

A new species that is a distant relative of mammals has been identified by Christian A. Sidor, Burke Museum curator of vertebrate paleontology, along with Jörg Fröbisch and Kenneth D. Angielczyk of the Field Museum. Kombuisia antarctica, a plant eater about the size of housecat, is part of a group of extinct mammal relatives called anomodonts. The Kombuisia antarctica’s name is tribute to where the pre-mammal lived, and by inhabiting Antarctica, the species was able to survive one of the most treacherous times on Earth.

The illustration shows the geographic location of Kombuisia antarctica in Antarctica with a reconstruction of how the animal probably looked like in life. (Credit: Jörg Fröbisch, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, and Christian A. Sidor)

About 252 million years ago, at the end of the Permian Period, the world went through the largest known mass extinction in history. Scientists are debating what exactly caused the mass extinction to occur, but one of the likely causes is global warming as a result of major volcanic activity in Siberia. During this tumultuous time for the Earth’s living creatures, Antarctica was actually one of the safest places to be.

It may seem odd to think of Antarctica as a good place to live, but during the Permian Period, the continent was vastly different from the way it is today. The continent was further north, and therefore was warmer and did not have glaciers.

Although Antarctica may have been an inhabitable place for Kombuisia antarctica millions of years ago, scientists today face extreme weather conditions. However, scientific findings and discoveries like Kombuisia antarctica are well worth the expeditions. Sidor’s discovery fills gaps in the fossil record and gives us a better understanding of vertebrate survival throughout Earth’s history.

To learn more about Kombuisia antarctica, click here.

Posted By: Andrea Barber, Communications

245 million-year-old fossils found in Antarctica

Posted by: Steven Zhang

Here’s an amazing discovery in the field of paleontology: for the first time paleontologists have found 245 million-year-old fossilized burrows of tetrapods (four-legged land vertebrates) in Antarctica. The Burke Museum’s curator of vertebrae paleontology, Christian Sidor, is the lead author of a paper describing this new discovery.

So, what’s a burrow? It’s a series of holes underground created by mammals as their habitat.

"We've got good evidence that these burrows were made by
land-dwelling animals rather than crayfish," said Sidor.

Evidence shows that the fossils were formed when fine sand from an overflowing river poured into the animal’s burrows and hardened. The largest piece found was 14 inches long, 6 inches wide and 3 inches deep. This was a rare discovery considering the icy conditions of Antarctica and suggests that mammals were living in Antarctica far earlier than previously thought!

-Steven

Photo by Cara Fritz / Oregon State University