Abstract: The geological history of Antarctica is hard to access due to harsh climate and thick ice cover, but glimpses of its paleontological past reveal a variety of environments inhabited by a diversity of plants and vertebrates. In this presentation, Peter Makovicky will discuss the history of Antarctic geological exploration and present on the dinosaurs and other Mesozoic vertebrate fossils collected on his two expeditions to Antarctica. He will also talk about how those fossils inform reconstructions of past environments and continental drift, and the unusual aspects of collecting fossils in the most inaccessible and harsh fossil sites in the world. 

Biography: Peter J. Makovicky is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, he was a Curator at the Field Museum in Chicago, including serving as the Chair of its Geology Department. Makovicky received his PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Columbia University in New York, and BSc and MSc degrees from Copenhagen University in Denmark, where he grew up.         Makovicky is a dinosaur paleontologist who studies the patterns and processes of macroevolution in the fossil record. He has conducted fieldwork in China, Argentina, Antarctica and the US, relying on an extensive international network of collaborations, and has contributed to naming over a dozen new dinosaur species.