Humans were not around to see Antarctica in the good times, tens of millions of years ago, when it was home to palms and baobab trees, reptiles and marsupials. It had some of the same mountains it has today, some of the same valleys and inlets. But it didn’t have the same address.
Long ago, Antarctica was located in the mid- latitudes, once part of the super continent Gondwana, until it slowly broke away, leaving continental kin like Africa and South America behind. It then went its own way, carried off by continental drift at just 1 to 2 in. per year, until it wound up where it is today, banished by tectonics to the bottom of the world.
