ATLAS

Verified factsOMEGA-10-21-3Sheet 3 of 6 of the dossier Ancient maps of Antarctica

What Antarctica is: ice, age and bedrock

The measured facts about the continent's size, ice, history and the landscape hidden under the ice sheet.

Colored relief map of Antarctica without ice, with mountains and deep basins in different colors.
The topography of the bedrock under the Antarctic ice sheet, from the Bedmap2 data (NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, 2013); relief is exaggerated. NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio · public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

Whatever the maps are thought to show, the continent they are compared with is well documented. Antarctica covers about 14.2 million square kilometres, making it the fifth-largest continent, and most of it lies under an ice sheet with an average thickness of 1.9 kilometres. The ice is old. Glaciation of Antarctica began between 60 and 45 million years ago and escalated about 34 million years ago, when falling carbon dioxide, with a tipping point of about 600 ppm, was the main driver. Even the warm early Pliocene, three to five million years ago, left the land-based East Antarctic ice sheet largely intact. Before the ice, the continent had a relatively temperate climate and was covered in forests for much of the last 400 million years, which is a story about deep geological time and not about human memory. The first sighting of its ice shelves is dated to 1820, during a Russian expedition. Since then, surveys have measured the rock under the ice. The Bedmap2 compilation of 2013 rests on 25 million thickness measurements and shows mountain ranges, valleys and basins in much greater detail than before. This is the factual yardstick against which the two map claims of the theory are tested: a coast that lay bare at the time of any possible human mapmakers would have to be absent from every one of these records.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, about 40% larger than Europe, and most of it is covered by an ice sheet with an average thickness of 1.9 km.

    • Antarctica, Wikipedia
      is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe
  2. Verified fact

    The glaciation of Antarctica escalated about 34 million years ago, with falling carbon dioxide, around a tipping point of 600 ppm, as the primary driver.

    • Antarctic ice sheet, Wikipedia
      escalated during the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about 34 million years ago
  3. Verified fact

    For much of the last 400 million years Antarctica had a relatively temperate climate and was covered in forests, despite its high latitude.

    • Antarctica, Wikipedia
      it was covered in forests, despite being at high latitude for most of the last 400 million years
  4. Verified fact

    During the warm early Pliocene, about five to three million years ago, there was no significant decline in the land-based East Antarctic ice sheet.

    • Antarctic ice sheet, Wikipedia
      no significant decline in the land-based Eastern Antarctic ice sheet
  5. Verified fact

    The ice shelves of Antarctica were probably first seen in 1820, during a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev.

  6. Verified fact

    The Bedmap2 ice thickness grid of 2013 is made from 25 million measurements, over two orders of magnitude more than the first Bedmap compilation of 2001.

  7. Verified fact

    With this data the subglacial landscape is visible in much greater detail than before, revealing the full scale of mountain ranges, valleys and basins under the ice.

Play on YouTube (third-party content)
NASA video "The Bedrock Beneath": the shape of the land under the Antarctic ice, from the Bedmap2 data.
NASA Goddard