High up in the mountains, the skeleton of a large meat-eating dinosaur is gradually emerging from the rocks. Nearby are some other early Jurassic fossils that have yet to be fully excavated - an allosaur, an unidentified predator and a herbivore. It sounds like a regular day in the field, but there's one big difference. This is Mount Kirkpatrick in the Transantarctic mountains, 4 kilometres above sea level and just 600 kilometres from the South Pole (see Map, page 38). The skeleton, a cryolophosaurus or "frozen crested lizard", was discovered a decade ago. But the work is difficult and excruciatingly slow because sub-zero temperatures make machinery unreliable and fierce storms keep workers tent-bound for days at a time. Philip Currie, director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, spent a month at the site on his most recent visit and managed only six days of useful work.
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