Heroes of Antarctic exploration-past famously include Shackleton, Scott, and Amundsen who raced to the South Pole in search of fame and discovery. They encountered harsh conditions and suffered extreme hardships, cut off from communication with the outside world. It took years of planning, then years of recovery, for these explorers to even begin to understand what they went through – let alone to describe what they discovered.

Over one hundred years later, filled with probably just as much excitement and anticipation, a new group of explorers has again journeyed to Antarctica. After years of planning, the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, or AP3, an international team of scientists, of which I am a part, headed off to probe a new frontier of Antarctic exploration. Our mission was not to discover the South Pole, but to find evidence of ancient life on a continent largely void of anything alive today. Would we really get there? Could I carry my own weight? Was my mom justified in worrying like I was her six-year-old daughter, not a 36-year-old professional paleontologist? These questions, among others ran through my mind, as I got ready to join 11 other paleontologists for this extreme fieldwork experience.



Taking the Zodiac to the shore from the Nathaniel B. Palmer icebreaker ship Photograph: Kerin Claeson

This amazing journey was made possible thanks to a merger of science and technology, of geologists and paleontologists, pilots and professors, seafarers and students, of Mother Nature and Deep Time. With the generous support of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, the AP3 was able to venture to the Antarctic to answer questions about life near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. As the name of our project indicates, we targeted a region of Antarctica known as the Antarctic Peninsula, specifically the islands within the James Ross Island Group.



These islands were once covered by ocean, when non-avian dinosaurs roamed the land, giant marine reptiles swam the seas, and swarms of strange fish schooled along the shores. We know the Antarctic Peninsula was warmer back then, teeming with plant and animal life, yet we know so little about the species that lived there. Therefore, we sought to travel to Antarctica ourselves, to collect data to answer questions about the extinct ecosystems that inhabited the continent during the Late Cretaceous and Early Paleogene. Actually getting there was among the first of the many significant hurdles that the AP3 team would eventually overcome.

Unlike Shackleton, who met with unexpectedly formidable sea ice and was to surrender his vessel to a frozen horizon, the AP3 was fully informed of the ice conditions on and around the Peninsula. In 2013 and 2014, there were near record amounts of sea ice surrounding the James Ross Island Group. Those would have been the first two years of our AP3 expedition, supported by the US Antarctic Program research vessel Laurence M. Gould. Warned in advance, however, we knew we were going nowhere and cancelled those field seasons. Fast-forward through two years and lots of negotiations, and we were ready to defy the sea ice via passage on the Nathaniel B. Palmer (NBP), a larger ice-breaking vessel equipped with small boat and helicopter support.



The team’s campsite in Antarctica Photograph: Kerin Claeson

Then (wouldn’t you guess it?) 2016 was among the warmest austral summers on record, with little sea ice and extensive exposure of potentially fossil-bearing rock. So, it took AP3 only four years of patient preparation, two days of flights to reach Chile, five days of polar field-camp and preparedness training, and four days of cruising through the Straits of Magellan, Drake Passage, and Weddell Sea before we took a short Zodiac ride to the shore of Vega Island on February 13, 2016. We had made it, and we were ready to science day and night for the next five weeks, on and off the shores of the islands in the James Ross group.

Of course we were not done facing the elements: water, earth, wind, but no fire (no wood means no campfires and no marshmallows!). By water, I mostly mean the frozen sort. We were not permitted to traverse over ice, much to the dismay of all my friends and family who honestly hoped we would be the team to actually uncover The Thing. No, we were intent on prospecting and digging for fossils, so regardless of potential safety issues, we simply avoided travel over glaciers. We stuck to exposed rock and soil surfaces, of which there were many, and fortunately for the AP3, most of these areas were filled with fossils peeking out of the earth.

Part of a fossil fish skull recovered this year Photograph: Kerin Claeson

We encountered a lot of frozen ground, which actually was great to work on – that is, until it thawed later in the day and we (well, I) got stuck in the mud on multiple occasions. It is a pretty funny moment when you realize your pants aren’t dry, just frozen because they got soaked when falling in the mud earlier in the day. Otherwise, frozen-solid ground was easy to navigate and prospect. On frozen days, without a lot of hiking, it would get pretty cold so I used extra toe warmers and found myself doing laps and pushups to stay warm, especially if it was windy.



Wind was particularly tricky when it caught us off guard. One day, the weather started off so warm and sunny, it was actually HOT in all my field gear, so I took off my parka, rolled down my leg warmers, and set off for the day with my colleague Meng Jin, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. By the time we reached the top of the peak at False Island Point off Vega Island, the wind nearly knocked us over and it was a mad scramble to put every article of clothing back on quickly. Wind also sometimes meant no fieldwork at all. For those of us on daily reconnaissance teams based on the NBP, the wind could make it unsafe for the helicopters to operate, so we would remain on board the ship. While in camp, the wind could also be strong enough to make even stepping out of the tent a challenge barely worth accepting.



Uncovering fossils on site Photograph: Kerin Claeson

On those windy days, I made use of the well-equipped laboratories on the ship or the makeshift laboratories in camp (thankfully, microscopes travel well). A full day or more devoted to lab work meant that I could prepare, identify, and catalogue several days’ worth of collected specimens. Much of the material I helped to recover belonged to ancient marine vertebrates, especially fishes, which are the organisms that I know best. These fossils included in situ rows of fish scales, shark teeth, articulated vertebrae, partial to nearly complete skulls, and dense masses of disarticulated bone that we will eventually CT scan and describe once the material arrives at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team also discovered fossils of non-avian dinosaurs, birds, plants, and invertebrates, and even excavated giant plesiosaur (marine reptile) bones.

Unlike the ill-fated Scott expedition, the AP3 suffered no lack of leadership or community and our best interests were always kept at the forefront, with each team member willing to give the same effort as any other. Real-time communication was possible among our scientists and logistical support team via VHF radios and satellite phones, and also with our family and friends back home through occasional satellite phone calls, emails, and yes, Twitter. We all depend on communication to make decisions and make the most of every day – therefore small issues like changing a radio frequency without the user knowing it, or batteries dying despite every effort to charge them, can cause a lot of miscommunication. For instance, I often went on day trips to new locations with the same two colleagues. We developed a pretty effective system of checking in with one another: we would start at a single location and venture apart while staying in visual and/or radio contact.



The boundary between the Cretaceous and Palaeogene - the end of the Era of dinosaurs and the beginning of the rise of mammals Photograph: Kerin Claeson

One day, after we set out over a landscape that was crisscrossed by hills and valleys, it began to snow, which meant we would need an earlier pickup. Two of us were still prospecting for fossils while the third team member had started to return to our agreed rendezvous point on shore. After what we considered to be a long time without contact, we tried to radio our teammate and got no response because that radio had malfunctioned. Thus, we began to walk back to the meeting point, completely unaware that our pickup time was moved up and rapidly approaching. We took our time, continuing to stop and search for fossils. Nobody was in danger and we were all looking out for each other, but that didn’t stop us from feeling sheepish once our radios began to connect again with shore only a short distance away. On clearer days, however, we were sometimes greeted with unexpected treats, such as the time I sat atop the highest point on Seymour Island amidst sunshine and spectacular views and was able to have a lunchtime radio conversation with the team at the top of Sandwich Bluff on Vega Island many miles away.

In the end, a typical day in the AP3 expedition could have been practically any other day in any other paleontological field season; we woke, we ate, we prospected, we discussed, we planned for the next day. Except that we were in ANTARCTICA, where so few people have successfully ventured and found fossils before. It was a feat and a privilege. Yes, we made it. Yes, I pulled my own weight. No, mom didn’t need to worry, but she did anyway. Daily hard work in such an exceptionally beautiful place made any hardship irrelevant. I met some amazing people on this trip and reconnected with others I’ve known and worked with for years. They helped to make the AP3 expedition among the greatest successes I could have ever hoped for – and we haven’t even had a chance to publish our findings yet!

Dr Claeson in the field Photograph: Kerin Claeson

Dr Kerin M. Claeson is a paleontologist and Assistant Professor of Anatomy, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, USA.