Antarctica 'Lost World' Found

Netscape News ^ | March 7, 2004

[pepsi_junkie]

Two teams of researchers, working separately thousands of miles from each other but both defeating incredible odds, have made stunning finds in frozen Antarctica -- so stunning that the National Science Foundation calls their discoveries evidence of a lost world.

The researchers found what they believe to be the fossilized remains of two species of dinosaurs previously unknown to science. One is a 70-million-year old quick-moving meat-eater found on the bottom of an Antarctic sea, while and the other is a 200-million-year-old giant plant-eater that was found on the top of a mountain, reports Reuters.

The lost world in which these two dinosaurs lived was very different from the Antarctica we know now. Their Antarctica was not frigid and frozen. Their Antarctica was warm and wet.

The 70-million-year-old carnivore was small for a dinosaur at just 6 to 8 feet tall. Scientists believe it is an entirely new species of carnivorous dinosaur that is related to the enormous meat-eating tyrannosaurs and the equally voracious, but smaller and swifter, velociraptors. Think "Jurassic Park." Now scream in terror! Found on James Ross Island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula by a team led by Judd Case from St. Mary's College of California, it likely floated out to sea after it died and then sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea. Reuters explains that its bones and teeth show that it was a two-legged animal that survived in the Antarctic long after other predators took over elsewhere on the globe. "One of the surprising things is that animals with these more primitive characteristics generally haven't survived as long elsewhere as they have in Antarctica," Case told Reuters.

The 200-million-year-old herbivore, a primitive sauropod that had a long neck and four legs, was found by a team led by William Hummer from Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois on the 13,000-foot high Mt. Kirkpatrick near the Beardmore Glacier. When this dino lived, the area was a soft riverbed. The team found dinosaur bones, specifically part of a huge pelvis and ilium. "This site is so far removed geographically from any site near its age, it's clearly a new dinosaur to Antarctica," Hammer told Reuters. This dinosaur was probably about 30 feet long, but was part of a lineage that went on to produce animals as large as 100 feet long.

Both excavations were supported by the National Science Foundation, an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.

[nuconvert]

dinosaur pong

[xrp]

Why are they digging for dinosaurs down there? They should be digging for oil! There HAS to be hundreds of billions of barrels, considering that Antarctica used to be tropical/sub-tropical and covered with forests.

[ServesURight]

Atlantis?

[ml/nj]

One is a 70-million-year old quick-moving meat-eater

I hope it liked penguin meat.

ML/NJ

[null and void]

Why are they digging for dinosaurs down there? They should be digging for oil!

International treaties forbid anyone claiming the oil.

[nightdriver]

If there are dinosaur remains in Antarctica, they ought to be drilling for oil.

[Cowgirl]

Let's be sure to throw a lot of money at this "important"
finding. (sarcasm) This is just most evidence for a flood
just like the bible says.

[bolobaby]

Seems to me like evidence of GLOBAL WARMING that occurred well before the internal combustion engine broke onto the scene!

[pepsionice]

There is already speculation about Antarctica being Atlantis. The only strong evidence however, is the fact that Port-to-Port maps exist...from one part of Antarctica to another...the shore lines match up, if you take into consideration the ocean rising in the distant past. The question then comes up...why do port to port maps exist for this frozen region, and the only answer is that it was not that cold at some point in a distant past and that people actually did live there for some reason. We already know that the true north pole (magnetically speaking) is about a 1000 miles south in one of the lakes of Candada...thus the reason all pilots use magnetic variation if using a compass for long-distance travel.

[skinkinthegrass]

I hope it liked penguin meat.

Oups, w/fishbreath BUMP

[Servant of the 9]

Why are they digging for dinosaurs down there? They should be digging for oil!

International treaties forbid anyone claiming the oil.

That was nice when we made treaties among equals, but today we have no equals.
Let the drill site leasing begin.

So9

[mhking]

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[Lancey Howard]

(( ping ))

[skinkinthegrass]

Ehmm...I hope it liked penguin meat.

Sorry... Oups Opus, w/fishbreath BUMP.

[mewzilla]

Click here for CNN's take.

[null and void]

I was thinking more along the lines of Campbell's "Who goes there?"...

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Well, there were internal combustion engines then, we call them Volcanoes and tropical forests today.

In essence, the opposite effect occurs from atmospheric particulate, which contributes to a cooling of the Earth. Tropical forests pump more natural methane and nitrogen into the air than the human race ever could. Their elimination is a good thing if "Greenpeace house gasses" were truly a fact.

[katana]

There's a theory that hydrocarbons like oil have nothing to do with organic fossils but are seeping up from the Earth's crust. This would explain why we haven't run out of oil in spite of the predictions more than thirty years ago that we would have by the 1990's. For example, old abandoned oil wells for some reason seem to partially refill after being left alone for a decade or two.

I can't remember the name of the scientist who has popularized this theory but to me it makes a lot more sense than the idea that all the oil and coal on the earth are remains of primeval forest and dinosaur crap.

[xrp]

Cool, thanks for the information.