Tiny fossils found

Press, 8 November 1986, Page 8

Tiny fossils found

Tiny fossils dating back 42 million years have been found by a New Zealand geological drilling team in Antarctica. The drilling team on the Cenozoic Investigations in the Western Ross Sea (C.1.R.0.5.) programme has also found beech leaf fossils believed to be 30 million years old.

The discovery of the fossils is a most significant geological result, according to the Antarctic Division of the D.S.I.R. Bad weather, however,

had threatened the future of the drilling programme, said the officer-in-charge at Scott Base, Mr Stewart Guy.

Weather conditions had stopped the delivery of fuel to the drilling site, which was 64km from Scott Base, and that could seriously affect work in the future.

The drilling began in early October and is expected to end about November 17, when the ice begins to break up. The D.S.I.R. still hopes, however, to continue the

drilling down to rock formations which date to pre-glacial times. The drilling team has already reached a depth of almost 520 m, which the D.S.I.R. says is the deepest hole drilled on the Antarctic continent.

The C.1.R.0.5. programme aims to get sediment samples from the McMurdo Sound seabed which, it is hoped, will help give the history of the Transantarctic Mountains and Ross Sea area.

Earlier report, page 38