ABSTRACT
West Antarctica, the tail of the Antarctic comma, straggles 1200 km north as a bedrock archipelago with the ice sheet submerging the lower parts of the continental sections. On all sides the continent is flanked by continental shelf, a large proportion of which is covered by ice shelves. Geologically, East Antarctica is a stable ancient shield of Precambrian metamorphic and igneous rocks, analogous to the Precambrian shields of South America. Nevertheless, the provinces that Rowley et al. define are broad lithotectonic provinces that can be used to examine the mineral resource potential of East Antarctica, the Pacific margin of Gondwanaland, and the development of post-Gondwanaland magmatic arcs. Much remains to be understood about the geology of Antarctica and, in spite of great advances in geophysical techniques that now allow sub-ice topography to be surveyed, the depth and extent of the ice cover ensures that progress is slow and sampling sparse.
