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Vega Island is a small island to the northwest of
James Ross IslandJames Ross Island is a large island off the southeast side and near the northeastern extremity of Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Prince Gustav Channel. Rising to 1,630 m, it is irregularly shaped and extends 40 miles in a north-south direction. It was charted in October 1903 by...
, on the
Antarctic| style="border-top:solid 1px #ccd2d9; padding:0.4em 1em 0.4em 0; vertical-align:top;" | 14,000,000 km
2 280,000 km
2 13,720,000 km
2 |-! style="border-top: solid 1px #ccd2d9; padding: 0.4em 1em 0.4em 0; vertical-align: top;...
Peninsula.
It is one of several islands around the peninsula known as
Graham LandGraham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...
, which is closer to South America than any other part of that continent.
Paleontological significance
Vega Island has a rich trove of
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record...
s in deposits which span the
CretaceousThe Cretaceous , Latin language for "chalky", usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
and
PaleogeneThe Paleogene is a geologic period and system that began 65.5 ± 0.3 and ended 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and comprises the first part of the Cenozoic era...
(early "
TertiaryThe Tertiary is a term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.588 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
") periods. This includes the K-Pg extinction event, which destroyed all non-avian
dinosaur{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Taxobox|name = Dinosaurs|fossil_range = {{Fossil range|230|65|earliest=230|latest=0|PS=
Descendant taxon Aves survives to present.}}|image = field_dinos_2.jpg...
s. For documenting the consequences of this event, Vega Island is one of the best locations in the world.
The first dinosaur discovered on Antarctica was an armored
ankylosauriaAnkylosauria is a group of herbivorous dinosaurs of the order Ornithischia. It includes the great majority of dinosaurs with armor in the form of bony osteoderms. Ankylosaurs were bulky quadrupeds, with short, powerful limbs. They are first known to have appeared in the early Jurassic Period of...
n, discovered during 1986 on
James Ross IslandJames Ross Island is a large island off the southeast side and near the northeastern extremity of Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Prince Gustav Channel. Rising to 1,630 m, it is irregularly shaped and extends 40 miles in a north-south direction. It was charted in October 1903 by...
. The second was discovered on Vega Island during 1986 by the
British Antarctic SurveyThe British Antarctic Survey is the United Kingdom's national Antarctic operation and has an active role in Antarctic affairs. BAS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council and has over 400 staff. It operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in and around...
. The
hypsilophodontHypsilophodonts were small ornithopod dinosaurs, regarded as fast, herbivorous bipeds on the order of 1-2 meters long . They are known from Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, from rocks of Middle Jurassic to late Cretaceous age...
, a type of small, herbivorous dinosaur, was discovered in the
mudstoneMudstone is a fine grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Grain size is up to 0.0625 mm with individual grains too small to be distinguished without a microscope. With increased pressure over time the platey clay minerals may become aligned, with the...
layer of the Earth by
López de Bertodano FormationThe Lopez de Bertodano Formation is a geological formation in Antarctica whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.-Vertebrate paleofauna:...
. Both dinosaurs were dated to the late Cretaceous.
The anseriform
Vegavis iaai, discovered during 1992 but not prepared for economical studying until several years later, provided the ultimate proof that modern birds lived alongside their non-avian dinosaur cousins. Many Cretaceous birds fossils were suspected to belong to modern
ordersIn scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
, but these were little more than single and broken bones.
V. iaai by contrast is a fine specimen preserved as associated parts of the skeleton.
Only three Cretaceous non-avian dinosaurs have been discovered in Antarctica. The last was also discovered on Vega Island, during 1998 by paleontologists from the Instituto Antartico Argentino in
ArgentinaArgentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations, though Mexico,...
and
St. Mary's CollegeSaint Mary's College of California is a private, coeducational college located in Moraga, California, United States. It is affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and administered by the De La Salle Christian Brothers...
in
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
. They found the teeth of a duck-bill
dinosaur{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Taxobox|name = Dinosaurs|fossil_range = {{Fossil range|230|65|earliest=230|latest=0|PS=
Descendant taxon Aves survives to present.}}|image = field_dinos_2.jpg...
. Also known as hadrosaurs, these semi-
quadrupedQuadrupedalism is a form of land animal locomotion using four limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet"...
al
herbivoreA herbivore is an animal that is adapted to eat plants and not meat.Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism consumes principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
s are characterized by elaborate chewing mechanisms, similar to modern
ungulateUngulates are several groups of mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. They make up several orders of mammals, of which six to eight survive...
s. Many also had 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 AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
, and had spread to
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
.
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-Pg extinction event, is evidence that a
land bridgeA land bridge, in biogeography, is an isthmus or wider land connection between otherwise separate areas, which allows terrestrial animals and plants to cross over and colonise new lands...
still connected South America and Antarctica even at that late a date.
Additional finds from the 1998 expedition included a
4 cmImage:Length one to ten scale.svg|110px|right|Click on the top for smaller lengths and on the bottom for larger lengthspoly 0 0 20 20 0 20 Distances shorter than 1 centimetrepoly 0 200 200 200 220 220 0 220 Distances 10 centimetres or longer...
(1.6 in) piece of bone belonging to the most ancient Antarctic
birdBirds are winged, bipedal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay eggs. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Birds range in size from the Bee Hummingbird to the ...
yet discovered{{Fact|date=November 2007}}; and remains of
plesiosaurA plesiosaur was a type of carnivorous aquatic reptile. After their discovery, plesiosaurs were somewhat fancifully said to have resembled "a snake threaded through the shell of a turtle", although they had no shell...
s and
mosasaurMosasaurs were serpentine marine reptiles. The first fossil remains were discovered in a limestone quarry at Maastricht on the Meuse in 1764...
s including several juvenile specimens which are quite rarely found.
{{update}}
An additional expedition in December 2003 was locked in the ice and rerouted to James Ross Island.
External links
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