Antarctica - icy, empty, desolate, cold - these are words you may use to describe it, but it hasn’t always been that way. There was once a time when the great southern landmass was covered in forests and dinosaurs roamed free. How could such an icy wilderness once have been so warm that it could support Earth’s most gigantic creatures? To understand this we have to go back in geological time. Antarctica was ice free during the Cretaceous Period , lasting from 145 to 66 million years ago. That long ago may seem unfamiliar but we know it because it was the last age of the dinosaurs before an asteroid hit the earth and ended their time on this planet. During this time period there were forests at both poles. Fossils of trees and cold-blooded reptiles have allowed scientists to build up a picture of what the climate was like. Cold-blooded reptiles need the warmth of the sun to survive; today we see them basking in the sun to warm up during the day. At the poles where the sun dis
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