The physical geography

Antarctica contains 90% of the world's ice and about 70% of the world's fresh surface water locked away as ice. In East Antarctica, you stand on 15,7000vertical feet of ice, or about 3 miles! This ice is so heavy is depresses the earth's crust almost 2000 feet. some ice is as much as 100,000 years old. If all the ice melted, the seas would rise 200 feet. During the Jurassic period, 190 to 135 million years ago, the South Pole was cold and dark but occupied by sea, not land. Antarctica was then a core piece of a forested super continent called Gondwanaland, fused with Australia, India, Africa, Madagascar and South America. A benign climate prevailed.
National Geographic, Antarctica: The Last Continent