Vega Island

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Map of Graham Land, showing Vega Island (7)

Vega Island is a small island to the northwest of James Ross Island, on the Antarctic Peninsula.

[edit] Stone cold bones

Vega Island has a rich trove of fossils, located in deposits which span the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods. This includes the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, which wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs, and it is one of the best such in the world.

The first dinosaur discovered on Antarctica was an armored ankylosaurian, discovered in 1986 on James Ross Island. The second was discovered on Vega Island in 1986 or 1989 ( not sure), by the British Antarctic Survey. The hypsilophodont, a type of small, herbivorous dinosaur, was discovered in the mudstone of the Lopez de Bertodano Formation. Both dinosaurs were dated to the late Cretaceous.

Only three Cretaceous dinosaurs have been discovered in Antarctica. The last was also discovered on Vega Island, in 1998 by paleontologists from the Instituto Antartico Argentino in Argentina and St. Mary's College in California. They found the teeth of a duck-bill dinosaur. Also known as a hadrosaur, this group of semi-quadrupedal herbivores are characterized by elaborate chewing mechanisms, similar to modern ungulates; and a crest on the top of their head, which may have been used for complex vocalizations. By the end of the Cretaceous, the duck-bills were the dominant plant-eating animal of North America, and had spread to South America.

Prior to this find, no duck-bills had been found outside the Americas. The find, dating from 66–67 million years ago, just before the K-T extinction event, is evidence that a land bridge still connected South America and Antarctica even at that late a date.

Additional finds from the 1998 expedition included a 4 cm (1.6 in) piece of bone belonging to the most ancient Antarctic bird yet discovered; and remains of the ancient sea reptiles known as plesiosaurs and mosasaurs — including several, rare juvenile specimens.

An additional expedition in December 2003 was locked in the ice and rerouted to James Ross Island. Another is planned for January of 2005.