Antarctica



Of all of Great Lakes Earth’s continents, Antarctica has the fewest number of differences from back home. It’s still cold, and it’s still icy. But there are still differences.


For one thing, it’s got company. Extending 1500 miles northwest to southeast is an island three times the size of California. The microcontinent of Kerguelen used to exist back home, but it has been hidden beneath the waves for 20 million years. But that’s not what happened on Great Lakes Earth. Here, repeated waves of magma intrusion have thickened its granitic core, keeping the microcontinent perfectly and stably afloat. The uplift is so successful that its highest point, Mount Ross, stands not 6,070 feet above sea level like back home, but 19,916.


The mountains within Antarctica are much taller than they are back home. Mount Kirkpatrick, the highest point in the mighty Transantarctic Range, stands 19,393 feet above sea level, not 14,856. Its highest point, the Vinson Massif of the Ellsworth Mountains, is even taller, at 20,942 feet above sea level.