When dinosaurs roamed the Arctic

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS

Picture giant lizards and T-Rex-like monsters: these are among the critters who once called the Arctic home.

Montreal-based paleontologist Hans Larsson recently revealed that in 2003, when he was on Bylot Island, he found pieces of giant foot bones from a huge creature resembling a meat-eating Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The reptile would have died about 70 million years ago.

Meanwhile, scientists in Norway say the Svalbard Islands are hiding thousands of giant prehistoric lizard fossils, dating from the Triassic Period, 210 to 220 million years ago.

At that time, these High Arctic islands were underwater, in a large, deep ocean with a black, muddy bottom rich in organic material. When the reptiles in the sea died, they sank to the bottom.

Over eons, the continental plates moved and the seabed was transformed into a thin layer of fossil-rich black shale.