Antarctica: under the ice cap ... there is land? or it's just a hugh piece of ice?

Question

if so...
after the global warming, one thing at least will turn out good... will get a chance to start again on a virgin land....
and maybe we will find a human remain's from a warm age in the past??

Answer 1

There is land under the Antarctic ice cap. In fact, there is land poking through it; Antarctica has a couple of mountain ranges.

Because the ice is so thick, it is heavy enough to depress the rock that underlies it, so the surface of the rock is mostly below sea level.

The ice cap would take several thousand years to melt, even with global warming. For thousands of years after that, the rock surface would continue to be depressed. (I don't know how long it would be below sea level.) The Great Lakes are located where they are because the surface of the earth has not completely rebounded from the last Ice Age (when that area was covered by a continental glacier like Antarctica today), which ended about 10,000 years ago.

Answer 2

There is indeed land with a variety of rocks underneath the ice cover and they are exposed in summer times. That is why Antarctica is a continent while Arctic, which is only ice, IS NOT A CONTINENT.
The global warming is still a debatable issue. While there is undoubtedly a steady rise in the atmospheric temperatures accompanied by retreating of ice, there is no proof that it is going to destroy us. And if it actually destroys us, the question of starting afresh does not arise.

Answer 3

Under the ice cap there is land in Antarctica. the arctic region is made completely of ice.

Answer 4

Yes, there is land. Antarctica used to be part of a huge continent called Laurasia (Australia was part of it too). During the age of dinosaurs, this land mass crept slowly southward until it finally reached its present position. You would be unlikely to find human remains there; it has been frozen since before the dinosaurs became extinct.

Answer 5

There is quite a bit of land, some of which is currently below sea level because of the weight of all that ice on top of it, but it would rebound after many thousands of years if the ice melted.

Answer 6

Land

Answer 7

There is land. They have done various core drilling and have brought up material from beneath the ice. This land mass was ice free at one time.

Answer 8

It is my understanding that it is just ice.

edit: OK so apparently there is land but we can't study it well because of the ice. If all the ice were to melt I would doubt it would be usable land. Plus, it will eventually freeze back up again.

Answer 9

There is land under the Antartican ice. But there is no land under the Arctic Ice....

LOL...nice idea though....I'll be your guest for dinner some day on that island :)

Answer 10

Oh there is most certainly land underneath. There is miles of ice on top. It has mountains and yes, there is a potential that there is something of alife long ago under there. And possibly even more...