In Chapter 14, we find Grace and Leclerc off the coast of western Antarctica; climatologist Leclerc is depressed to find himself “ordering a nuclear strike” 14.145 on the continent. The goal is to deliberately release methane trapped inside ice, in the hopes of warming the planet and therefore partially counteracting the effects of the dimming Sun.

Leclerc explains: “Thing is, Antarctica used to be a jungle. For millions of years it was as lush as Africa. But continental drift and natural climate change froze it over. All those plants died and decomposed.” 14.140

He mentions this long-dead vegetation to explain the presence of the trapped methane but let’s examine this statement that Antarctica used to be a jungle.

Thanks to the (highly supported and scientific) theory of continental drift, we know that Earth’s landmasses have greatly changed their relative positions over history. Somewhere around 180 million years ago, Antarctica began to separate from Africa as part of the rifting of Gondwana, the supercontinent that once consisted of South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Zealandia (the mostly-submerged continent containing New Zealand), India, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Antarctica continued to separate from the other continents of Gondwana and to drift in the direction of its modern-day position, with the Indian subcontinent breaking away around 125 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. Sediment collected from the seafloor in western Antarctica suggests that the continent’s coastline hosted temperate rainforests around 90 million years ago. Various analyses all indicate the same conclusion: Antarctica was a warm, ice-free forest during the Cretaceous. However, we should not be too eager to assume that this massive difference from what we see today was entirely due to location, as Antarctica was quite close to its present-day southern polar position by that time.

Further rifting and drifting continued to migrate Antarctica and separate it from other landmasses; it completely disconnected from Australia in the Late Eocene (between 45-30 million years ago). It is thought that the widening of the sea between these two continents was crucial in forming the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that prevents warm water from reaching Antarctica, helping it to remain cold and frozen today.

The complex picture of Antarctica’s climate history still requires much investigation, which may be why Leclerc decided not to educate Ryland with too many details of this process.