Antarctica’s Hidden Terrain: A 14-Million-Year-Old Landscape Unearthed

A Lost World Hidden Beneath Antarctica’s Ice. What if all of Antarctica’s ice vanished?

This image reveals the buried landscape beneath – and with it, a shocking discovery. “Highland A” is a lost world, a remnant of an ancient landscape of valleys and ridges ancient valleys carved by rivers at least 14 million years ago.

Before Antarctica froze over, mountain rivers shaped this land. Now, against all odds, part of that prehistoric world still exists, untouched beneath miles of ice. Scientists expected it to be ground away by the crushing weight of the ice sheet. But instead, it’s been perfectly preserved like a time capsule.

“This landscape hanging out there in the middle of the basin is a little bit of an odd phenomenon,” said scientist Duncan Young.
But this isn’t just a fascinating relic. The land beneath Antarctica is key to our future. It controls how ice moves, how fast it melts, and how much sea levels could rise. The basin hiding this lost landscape holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 25 feet (7.6 m). Yet, we know more about the surface of Mars than about what’s under Antarctica’s frozen shield.

As the climate warms, what other secrets might be buried beneath the ice? And how might they change our world?