Polar Dinosaurs: Living the High Life
in the Age of Dinosaurs
Fairbanks: January 22

In the present world, we most commonly associate the polar latitudes with a frigid climate dominated by snow and ice. However, during the Age of Dinosaurs, or Mesozoic (250-65 million years ago), our world was vastly different. Instead of polar bears and caribou traversing expanses of treeless tundra, there were carnivorous dinosaurs and herds of plant-eating duck billed dinosaurs living in and around luxuriant forests.  Unlike today, the Mesozoic seas did not play host to whales and seals, rather they supported gigantic marine reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs.

In his talk, Druckenmiller will provide an overview of dinosaurs and other life that lived in polar latitudes during the Mesozoic.  He will discuss exciting new finds of Jurassic marine reptiles from the arctic of Norway.  Special attention will be given to the rich and fascinating fossil record of Cretaceous Alaskan dinosaurs, such as those collected on the North Slope.

Pat Druckenmiller is Curator of Earth Sciences at the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Assistant Professor in the UAF Department of Geology and Geophysics.  Pat’s research focuses on marine reptiles that existed during the “Age of Dinosaurs” (the Mesozoic), including plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs.  Pat is currently involved in a project to study new marine reptiles from the Norwegian arctic of Svalbard, and will be leading fieldwork to recover dinosaurs on the North Slope of Alaska.

Related Links:
UA Museum
Dept. of Geo/Geophysics
Monster Diggers