Under the oldest ice on the planet, scientists have discovered an untouched landscape hidden for 34 million years.
For decades, Antarctica was considered an icy desert with no greater mystery than its vast whiteness. However, an international team of researchers has discovered that buried under two kilometers of ice lies an intact landscape that has not seen the light in over 34 million years. This network of valleys, ridges, and ancient river basins carved by rivers is like opening a time capsule that reveals the region’s pre-giant ice sheet formation era.
### The “lost world” under East Antarctica
 The discovery was made possible by detecting subtle irregularities in the ice surface and reconstructing the underlying topography. The mapped area covers around 32,000 km² — a size similar to that of Wales — and revealed three elevated blocks known as Highland A, crossed by branching valleys and fjords descending up to 1,480 meters below sea level. The terrain patterns show that this landscape originated from vigorous rivers and was later modified by local glaciers, without erasing its original features.
### From Gondwana to eternal ice
 Tens of millions of years ago, Antarctica was not a frozen desert but part of Gondwana, sharing territory with South America, Africa, India, and Australia. It enjoyed a temperate climate with abundant vegetation and biodiversity now buried under ice. Everything changed during the Eocene-Oligocene transition when the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration drastically dropped, leading to the formation of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which has preserved this landscape almost intact ever since.
### What this discovery reveals about climate change
Beyond scientific curiosity, this discovery provides insights into climate change. The stability of this landscape for millions of years demonstrates Antarctica’s resilience to extreme climate fluctuations but also warns of current risks: CO₂ levels and global temperatures are approaching pre-great glaciation levels. If global warming continues, the mechanisms that kept this lost world hidden could destabilize, impacting sea levels and the global climate.
