In the early 80's I was a Ph.D. Student at Cambridge Unbiversity, and we had a visitor one year who was from South Africa, and his speciality was the bedrock geology of Antarctica - where the S.A. govt had plans to build a platinum mine and extract the ore via hovercraft over the ice - this was in the time of international sanctions when they were desperate for many materials and didn't care about world opinion. It never caqme to anything, partly because the government and the whole political system collapsed.

Now, other countries are quietly thinking about Arctic and Antarctic oil. Russia has made territorial claims to the entire Sub-Arctic seabed, and China is increasing its presence in the Antarctic.