Antarctica: A Geological History of the Last Great Wilderness
written by Lexi Delmonico
Antarctica is perhaps the most mysterious continent on our planet. Once a part of the supercontinent Gondwana, Antarctica has dinosaur and marsupial fossils from a time when its climate was not the snowy landmass we know it as today. According to the Australia Antarctic Program, the continents of Australia and Antarctica that were once connected, completely separated only 30 million years ago. Considering that the Earth has been alive for 4.5 billion years, this separation is fairly recent in geological history.
Of the dinosaurs that once roamed the “cold temperate rainforests” that made up Antarctica, the ankylosaurs, an armored dinosaur, and the mosasaur and plesiosaur, marine reptiles, are the most formally outlined. Antarctica is also a place where various dolphin and whale fossils have been found. It also shows evidence of a major extinction event that occurred 2 to 3 million years ago. The cause is up for debate with scientists theorizing that “the closure of the Isthmus of Panama, which caused the flow of water from the Atlantic