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.

Modern Antarctica is a frozen desert, largely devoid of life. But this wasn't always the case. Ninety million years ago, it supported lush forests.

Along with fossils of roots, pollen, and spores, the amber provides some of the best evidence yet that a mid-Cretaceous, swampy rainforest existed near the South Pole, and that this prehistoric environment was " dominated by conifers ", similar to forests in New Zealand and Patagonia today.

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,

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