Arctic Dinosaurs

NARRATOR: High inside the Arctic Circle, in one of the most unforgiving environments on the planet, two teams of paleontologists investigate a 70-million-year-old mystery। They've unearthed dozens of dinosaurs—adults and juveniles—their bones jumbled together, fossilized, then locked in permafrost for eons, until now.

KEVIN MAY (University of Alaska Museum): Well, there's two pieces of bone right here.

RON TYKOSKI (Museum of Nature & Science): It's as if somebody took 15 Pachyrhinosaurus, dumped them in a blender for 30 seconds and then poured all the mess out into a large batch of concrete and let it solidify for 70 million years.

NARRATOR: The startling discovery that these ancient reptiles, "thunder lizards," lived and thrived in the arctic has taken scientists by surprise.

ANTHONY FIORILLO (Museum of Nature and Science, Dallas): It challenges everything that we think we know about dinosaurs.

HANS-DIETER SUES (Smithsonian Institution): Finding polar dinosaurs was important because it provided whole new insights into the biology of dinosaurs.

NARRATOR: How did they survive in such an extreme environment, and what was the real reason they were driven to extinction?

ROBERT SPICER (The Open University, U.K.): There's a lot of questions out there. And it's not as simple as, "Everybody died because a rock came in from space."

BOBBY FITHIAN (Alaskan Permafrost Miner): Fire in the hole!

NARRATOR: From millions of years in the past, a story of survival against all odds: Arctic Dinosaurs, right now on NOVA. PBS Airdate: October 7, 2008