Unlike its counterpart, West Antarctica, which has long been decimated by melting ice caps, East Antarctica used to be a safe zone - something scientists could depend on as a constant while they solved the more pressing destruction...
The Quelccya ice cap in the Andes Mountains of Peru took upwards of 1,600 years to form, and it could have formed as long as 6,000 years ago, but it took just 25 years to melt away...