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Antarctica has not always been a land of ice and snow. Earth's southernmost continent once was home to rivers and forests full of life. 

南极洲并不总是冰天雪地。 地球最南端的大陆曾经是充满生机的河流和森林的家园。 

Scientists are using satellite observations and radar imagery to look deep under the ice. The researchers report finding a large ancient landscape buried under the continent's ice sheet. It is full of valleys and ridges, shaped by rivers before being covered by glaciers long ago. 

科学家们正在利用卫星观测和雷达图像来观察冰层深处。 研究人员报告称，在该大陆的冰盖下发现了巨大的古代景观。 它充满了山谷和山脊，在很久以前被冰川覆盖之前由河流塑造而成。 

The landscape is located in East Antarctica's Wilkes Land area bordering the Indian Ocean. It covers an area about the size of Belgium. The researchers said the landscape appears to date to at least 14 million years ago and perhaps beyond 34 million years ago, when Antarctica entered its deep freeze. 

该景观位于东南极洲毗邻印度洋的威尔克斯地地区。 它的面积大约相当于比利时的面积。 研究人员表示，这片地貌似乎可以追溯到至少 1400 万年前，甚至可能超过 3400 万年前，当时南极洲进入深度冰冻状态。 

"The landscape is like a snapshot of the past," said Stewart Jamieson. He is a professor of glaciology at Durham University in England and co-leader of the study published in the journal Nature Communications. 

“这里的风景就像是过去的快照，”斯图尔特·贾米森说。 他是英国杜伦大学冰川学教授，也是发表在《自然通讯》杂志上的这项研究的共同领导者。

"It is difficult to know what this lost world might have looked like before the ice came along, but it was certainly warmer back then,” Jamieson added. “Depending how far back in time you go, you might have had climates that ranged anywhere from the climate of present-day Patagonia through to something more approaching tropical.” 

贾米森补充道：“很难知道这个失落的世界在冰层出现之前会是什么样子，但当时肯定更温暖。”“取决于你回溯到多久以前，你可能经历过任何地方的气候变化 从现在的巴塔哥尼亚气候到更接近热带的气候。” 

Such an environment likely would have been populated by wildlife, Jamieson said. But the area’s fossil record is too incomplete to know which animals may have lived there. 贾米森说，这样的环境很可能是野生动物的栖息地。 但该地区的化石记录太不完整，无法确定哪些动物可能生活在那里。