A team of scientists bound and determine to brave the harsh climate of Antarctica are rewarded for their efforts and discover a jackpot of ancient fossils. The scientists have released a footage of some of the findings from an expedition to the region.
According to I4U News, the scientists from the U.S., South Africa and Australia visited the James Ross island area from February through March. Dr. Steve Salisbury of University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences said in a press release that he and his team found fossils between 67 million and 71 million years old.
“We found a lot of really great fossils,” Dr. Salisbury said in a statement released on the UQ News. “The rocks that we were focusing on come from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, so most of them are between 71 million and 67 million years old."
Dr. Salisbury explained that most of the remains were of creatures that lived in the ocean, sharing that, “They were all shallow marine rocks, so the majority of things we found lived in the ocean. We did find a lot of marine reptile remains, so things like plesiosaurs and mosasaurs – a type of marine lizard made famous by the recent film Jurassic World.”
But the team also found some dinosaur fossils as well. Their discoveries will soon make their way to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where researchers can study them in-depth.
Dr. Salisbury said that the incredible discovery of so many fossils will help encourage more trips to the site in the future. "We found a lot of new ground to continue the search," he added. "So, we'd all really love to get back down there at some point soon."