First-ever amber discovery in Antarctica reveals lost prehistoric rainforest

First-ever amber discovery in Antarctica reveals lost prehistoric rainforest

Amber usually brings to mind tropical forests, trapped insects, and warm landscapes. That is what makes the new Antarctic find so striking. Buried beneath the Amundsen Sea, tiny resin fragments now suggest that about 90 million years ago, near the South Pole, swampy conifer forests were growing in a much warmer world. The material is the first fossil resin ever reported from Antarctica. Researchers found it in a thin lignite layer at the top of …