Today, Antarctica is a huge frozen continent, though it was once temperate enough to be covered in swampy forests. Now, a team of scientists has discovered fossilized tree resin—amber—on the continent for the first time.

The amber, excavated from Pine Island Bay in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, provides a unique snapshot of life in prehistoric Antarctica.

This southernmost discovery of amber offers new insights into Cretaceous forests near the South Pole, AWI said in a press release. The amber was discovered in a sediment core retr

For the first time, amber fragments have been recovered from Antarctica, or, to be more specific, from an offshore sedimentary basin. The fossils mean we now have amber samples from every continent, and provide information about Antarctica’s forests,

Around 90 million years ago, climatic conditions in Antarctica were suitable for resin-producing trees, allowing them to grow and survive.

Until recently, a gap existed in the world map of amber discoveries: the Antarctic continent. But that gap has finally been closed, thanks to a team led by Dr. Johann P. Klages from the Alfred Wegener Institute,