Jeffrey Stilwell is currently a Senior Lecturer and Leader of the Applied Palaeontology and Basin Studies Group in the School of Geosciences at Monash University, and Honorary Research Associate at the Australian Museum, specialising in ancient greenhouse Earth environments and equator-to-south-polar ecosystems. He is the author of five monographs and more than 60 peer-reviewed research papers, including many on the fossil record of Antarctica. He has participated on five major expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula and Transantarctic Mountains/McMurdo Sound. John Long is an Australian palaeontologist who is currently the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He has authored some 26 books, including The Rise of Fishes and Feathered Dinosaurs. His research has focused on the early evolution of fishes, especially from Australia and Antarctica.

Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The cold, barren land we call Antarctica -- 2 A continent discovered -- 3 The fossil pioneers -- 4 Antarctica's oldest fossils -- 5 The age of fish and ferns -- 6 A time of southern coal swamps -- 7 Giant amphibians and hairy reptiles -- 8 Volcanic lakes and early dinosaurs -- 9 When dinosaurs ruled -- 10 When giant reptiles swam in southern seas -- 11 Killer birds, giant penguins and early mammals -- 12 The big chill: from paradise to polar ice -- 13 Life today in the frozen south -- Endnotes -- Glossary -- References -- Index.