Contents
- Highlights from the first part of the field season
- Sky diving accident at South Pole claims three lives
Science notebook--News from Antarctica and beyond
- Asteroid impact in the Bellingshausen Sea
- Is there life on Mars? The controversy over ALH84001 continues
Children's author visits the South Pole
Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty enters into force
First fossil bird from East Antarctica by Jeffrey D. Stilwell, Craig M. Jones, Richard H. Levy, and David M. Harwood
Pseudodontorns, related to modern-day cormorants and pelicans, were large seabirds whose remains have been
found in marine deposits in Great Britain, Europe, both coasts of North America, Japan, Africa, New Zealand, and
the Seymour Island area of Antarctica. Equipped with a powerful bill, which had bony projections along its edge,
and long, thin wing bones, the pseudodontorn was believed to be a marine glider during the Eocene period. Fossil
remains from what is probably the legbone of a pseudodontorn (literally, "false-toothed" bird) found near Mount
Discovery during the 1995-1996 research season by University of Nebraska researchers now link the bird to East
Antarctica. In "First fossil bird from East Antarctica," researchers Jeffrey D. Stilwell, Craig M. Jones, Richard H. Levy,
and David M. Harwood describe the find and its significance. This sketch, drawn by Pauline Tandon, shows what
the pseudodontorn probably looked like in flight.
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