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Millions of years ago, rivers ran in Antarctica through craggy mountain valleys that were strangely similar to the European Alps of today, Chinese and British scientists reported on Wednesday.

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The imaging comes from a grueling effort by Chinese glaciologists to probe the mysterious realm beneath the East Antarctic heights, one of the most forbidding places in the world.

Dome A [aka, Dome Argus] lies at 4,093 metres (13,302 feet) above sea level and has an average annual temperature of -58.4 degrees Celsius (-73 degrees Fahrenheit).

Beneath it is an ice sheet between 1,649 and 3,135 metres thick that smothers the Gamburtsev mountains, a range named after a Soviet geophysicist, Grigoriy Gamburtsev, who detected the peaks in 1958.

The radar reflections revealed "classic Alpine topography" similar to Europe's Alps, showing that once there were river valleys that cut their way through the mountains.

Later, these valleys were gouged and deepened by glaciers.

"The landscape has probably been preserved beneath the ice sheet for around 14 million years," says the paper.

Found on AFP via io9.