The ice in Antarctica is, on average, a little over 2 kilometers (about 1.3 miles) thick, and in the very deepest spots it reaches close to 4.8–4.9 kilometers (about 3 miles) thick.

Quick Scoop: How deep is the ice in Antarctica?

  • Most of Antarctica is covered by a massive ice sheet that averages roughly 2,000–2,200 meters in thickness (just over 2 kilometers).
  • More than 98% of the continent lies under this ice, making it the largest single mass of ice on Earth.
  • The thickest known ice is in East Antarctica, in deep subglacial basins and canyons, where measurements show ice up to about 4,757–4,897 meters thick (around 4.8–4.9 kilometers).
  • These extreme depths mean the ice is taller than many of the world’s highest skyscrapers stacked on top of each other. One recent mapping effort compares the thickest ice to more than 15 times the height of London’s Shard.
  • Underneath, the bedrock is a rugged hidden landscape of mountains, deep valleys, and basins, some lying far below sea level and pushed down further by the sheer weight of the ice.

In simple terms: if you could drill straight down in some parts of Antarctica, you’d go through nearly 5 kilometers of solid ice before you ever touched rock.

TL;DR: Average ice thickness is just over 2 km, but in the deepest parts of East Antarctica the ice is nearly 5 km thick—one of the most extreme “ice depths” anywhere on the planet.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.