ATLAS

DivergenceOMEGA-24-1-5Sheet 5 of 5 of the dossier Lands beyond the ice wall

What is really hidden: worlds under the ice, not beyond it

Fossils, subglacial lakes and buried mountains, set against the claim of inhabited lands behind the wall.

A fossil theropod skull with a crest above the eyes, displayed in a museum.
Skull of the holotype of Cryolophosaurus ellioti, an Early Jurassic dinosaur from Antarctica, at the Field Museum in Chicago (2010). James St. John · CC BY · Wikimedia Commons

Summary

The stories of lost worlds beyond Antarctica draw on a real attraction: the continent does hide things. This sheet sets the narrative against what science has actually found, and the contrast is the divergence. No source examined here supports an ancient civilization or inhabited continents beyond the ice. Discover Magazine reports a chilly reception from scientists for such hypotheses, notes that the continent was last ice-free about 15 million years ago, and points out that Homo sapiens is only a few hundred thousand years old.

What is real is stranger on the scale of geology. Creatures long extinct do lie in Antarctic rock: Cryolophosaurus, an Early Jurassic theropod, was found on Mount Kirkpatrick. Lake Vostok may hold an environment sealed under the ice for millions of years, and drillers reached its water in February 2012. The Gamburtsev Mountains, about 1,200 km long, lie beneath more than 600 m of ice and snow. Science Feedback adds that satellite images, photographs, ship records and expeditions all show Antarctica to be a continent and not a wall.

The hidden worlds of Antarctica are therefore under the ice, not beyond it, and they are documented.

Verified facts

  1. Verified fact

    Discover Magazine reports that scientists have given a decidedly chilly reception to the hypotheses of an ancient civilization in Antarctica.

  2. Verified fact

    Ice-core research shows that the southern continent was last free of ice about 15 million years ago, while Homo sapiens has existed for only a few hundred thousand years.

  3. Verified fact

    Real extinct creatures have been found in Antarctica: Cryolophosaurus, a large theropod dinosaur of the Early Jurassic, was collected on Mount Kirkpatrick in 1990-91 and was the first carnivorous dinosaur discovered on the continent.

    • Cryolophosaurus, Wikipedia
      It was the first carnivorous dinosaur to be discovered in Antarctica
  4. Verified fact

    Lake Vostok may contain an environment sealed off below the ice for millions of years; Russian drillers reached the upper surface of its water on 6 February 2012.

    • Lake Vostok, Wikipedia
      Lake Vostok may contain an environment sealed off below the ice for millions of years
  5. Verified fact

    The Gamburtsev Mountains, about 1,200 km long and discovered by the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1958, are completely covered by over 600 metres of ice and snow: a real landscape hidden by ice.

Official version

  1. Official version

    Science Feedback concludes that several independent lines of evidence, including satellite imagery, direct photographs, over a century of ship records and expeditions, show that Antarctica exists and is a continent, not an ice wall.