During an Antarctic expedition, researchers in northern Victorialand discovered a 200-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur footprint. It was a roughly hand-sized trace of an animal from the group of archosaurs .
It is unclear exactly what type of dinosaur is is. The researchers made the trail discovery in January 2016 in Helliwell Hills in northern Victoria-Land, and their findings were recently published in the journal “Polar Research”. In southern Victorialand, dinosaur bones have already been discovered, but in the northern part we have had no evidence to date, said BGR expedition leader Andreas Läufer. “That was something we didn’t expect at all, an absolute surprise. This part of Antarctica, nothing like this has ever been found. Probably, the traces come from an ancestor of today’s crocodile,” says expedition leader Dr. Andreas Läufer.
In addition, the scientists found fossilized remains of forests some 1,700 kilometers from the South Pole. “This is an indication that about 200 million years ago, Antarctica was not the icy continent as we know it today,” said Dr. Andreas Läufer.
Source: BGR Hannover, Andreas Läufer
