Antarctica and the Southern Ocean (referred to as "Antarctica") are integral parts of the Earth's system, interconnected with its northern regions through oceanic and atmospheric coupling. "Understanding the polar regions, protecting the polar regions, and utilizing the polar regions" is national development strategy of China. Over 98% of the Antarctic continent is covered by ice and snow, making it difficult to obtain subglacial geological information and hindering our understanding of the continent's geology and resource environment. Compared to potential field and electromagnetic field methods, reflection seismic exploration offers advantages in both exploration depth and resolution, which penetrates the ice sheet to detect ice layers and sub-ice geological structures, making it a crucial tool for understanding the Antarctic snow-ice-bedrock structure and playing a significant role in Antarctic exploration. This paper reviews the progress of reflection seismic exploration in Antarctica and summarizes the development history of Antarctic seismic exploration, including seismic sources, geophones, observation systems, and more. By combining actual seismic data from the Thwaites Glacier region with forward modeling, this study analyzes the characteristics of seismic wave fields under the special medium model of Antarctic snow-ice-bedrock. Additionally, the paper summarizes the applications of seismic exploration in Antarctic research and provides an analysis and outlook for China's reflection seismic exploration research in Antarctica.