The account of an expedition to Antarctica that uncovered a new dinosaur species attracted students, area visitors and even former residents of the ice-capped continent to the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on Thursday night.

The museum hosted the lecture to begin its spring lecture series, "Tales From the Field."

In her talk, "An Antarctic Adventure," Amanda Cordes-Person, museum paleontologist and ornithology collection manager, led the audience from Oklahoma City, to the southern tip of Chile, through the iceberg-filled Drake Passage and onto the landmass at the foot of our planet.

The group left during November 2003 and spent 24 days at its camp on the Antarctic peninsula.

Thick ice forced the group's icebreaker to another part of Antarctica on James Roff Island, Cordes-Person said.

"The sounds we heard inside the hull were extremely loud," she said.

Despite moderate weather for most of the dig, a dangerous blizzard halted the expedition for a short time, holding the scientists inside their two-person tents, she said.

"It's an interesting dichotomy," Cordes-Person said. "Go outside and die or, hey, let's watch a movie."

Though they were intending to camp on a different island, the team worked hard for the fossils from the Cretaceous Period that they came to Antarctica to find, she said.

Cordes-Person said the team uncovered about 50 fossils of a new species of dinosaur at the second location.

Cordes-Person wasn't the only ex-resident of Antarctica at the lecture, however.

Donna Muchmore of Oklahoma City drove to Norman to attend the lecture. Muchmore was the first woman to work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station when she flew to Antarctica in 1973, she said.

With her late husband, Dr. Harold G. Muchmore, she made the journey twice, flying in from New Zealand. Her husband made a total of 12 trips to the station, she said.

"He took care of the people down there," Muchmore said. "I went down as a tech."

Harold Muchmore, formerly of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation on the OU Health Sciences Center campus, has a valley in Antarctica named after him, Donna Muchmore said.

Like Muchmore Valley, the new species' name will commemorate the work that Cordes-Person's team did.

"There is no name yet for the dinosaur," she said. "Research is still being done to find what family the dinosaur is in."

After the lecture, Cordes-Person said she hoped her lecture added to student's excitement about science.

For students seeking tips to follow in her steps, Cordes-Person has one tip, she said.

"Break in your boots before you go," she said.
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