<P> Outside the main ice sheets, widespread glaciation occurred on the Alps − Himalaya mountain chain . In contrast to the earlier glacial stages, the Würm glaciation was composed of smaller ice caps and mostly confined to valley glaciers, sending glacial lobes into the Alpine foreland . To the east the Caucasus and the mountains of Turkey and Iran were capped by local ice fields or small ice sheets . </P> <P> In the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau, glaciers advanced considerably, particularly between 45,000 and 25,000 BC, but these datings are controversial . The formation of a contiguous ice sheet on the Tibetan Plateau is controversial . </P> <P> Other areas of the Northern Hemisphere did not bear extensive ice sheets, but local glaciers in high areas . Parts of Taiwan, for example, were repeatedly glaciated between 42,250 and 8,680 BCE as well as the Japanese Alps . In both areas maximum glacier advance occurred between 58,000 and 28,000 BCE . To a still lesser extent glaciers existed in Africa, for example in the High Atlas, the mountains of Morocco, the Mount Atakor massif in southern Algeria, and several mountains in Ethiopia . In the Southern Hemisphere, an ice cap of several hundred square kilometers was present on the east African mountains in the Kilimanjaro massif, Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains, still bearing remnants of glaciers today . </P> <P> Glaciation of the Southern Hemisphere was less extensive because of current configuration of continents . Ice sheets existed in the Andes (Patagonian Ice Sheet), where six glacier advances between 31,500 and 11,900 BC in the Chilean Andes have been reported . Antarctica was entirely glaciated, much like today, but the ice sheet left no uncovered area . In mainland Australia only a very small area in the vicinity of Mount Kosciuszko was glaciated, whereas in Tasmania glaciation was more widespread . An ice sheet formed in New Zealand, covering all of the Southern Alps, where at least three glacial advances can be distinguished . Local ice caps existed in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, where in three ice areas remnants of the Pleistocene glaciers are still preserved today . </P>

During the most recent ice age what percentage of earth's surface was covered by glaciers