On the basis of the available evidence, Antarctica has generally been thought to have been covered by ice for at least the past 14 million years  Recently, however, three-million-year-old fossils of a kind previously found only in ocean-floor sediments were discovered under the ice sheet covering central Antarctica  About three million years ago, ttherefore, the Antarctic ice sheet must temporarily have melted
After all, either severe climatic warming or volcanic activity in Antarctica' s mountains could have melted the ice sheet, thus raising sea levels and submerging the continent
Antarctica is no longer generally thought to have been covered by ice for the past 14 million years.