Antarctica

The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in Meteorology about an « Antarctic region » in c. Tourism, fishing and research are the main human activities in and around Antarctica. According to the terms of the treaty, military activity, mining, nuclear explosions, and nuclear waste disposal are all prohibited in Antarctica. In the early 20th century, there were a few expeditions into the interior of the continent.

It is the world’s highest continent, with an average elevation of about 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) above sea level. The southernmost music festival in the world, Icestock, has been held at McMurdo Station since 1989. The INStabilities & Thresholds in ANTarctica (INSTANT) Scientific Research Programme proposes three research themes, investigating the complex interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, and solid Earth in Antarctica.

Do any plants grow in Antarctica?

• Most of these residents are not scientists, but work to support station operations, construction, maintenance, and daily life.
• West Antarctica was formed by the merging of several continental plates, which created a number of mountain ranges in the region, the most prominent being the Ellsworth Mountains.
• In 2021, the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) released a Midterm Assessment on the 2015 Strategic Vision for Antarctic and Southern Ocean Research, stressing the prominent role of the Southern Ocean in the global carbon cycle and sea level rise.
• The Antarctic Convergence is an uneven line of latitude where cold, northward-flowing Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the world’s oceans.

These ecosystems may harbor novel species that have remained concealed for centuries, sustained by nutrient-bearing ocean currents. Researchers uncovered ecosystems unexpectedly rich in large corals, ancient sponges, icefish, giant sea spiders, and even octopuses at depths of up to 1,300 metres (4,300 ft). In January 2025, the detachment of the massive iceberg A-84 (comparable in size to the city of Chicago) from the George VI Ice Shelf provided a rare opportunity to explore the seafloor beneath floating ice shelves using robotic submersibles. Factors that may aid in their distribution include temperature differences between the deep ocean at the poles and the equator of no more than 5 °C (9 °F) and the major current systems or marine conveyor belts which are able to transport eggs and larva. The research found that more than 235 marine organisms live in both polar regions, having bridged the gap of 12,000 km (7,456 mi). The emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica; it and the Adélie penguin breed farther south than any other penguin.

What is the lowest temperature recorded in Antarctica?

The view of space from Earth is improved by a thinner atmosphere at higher elevations and a lack of water vapour in the atmosphere caused by freezing temperatures. Biomedical scientists have made discoveries concerning the spreading of viruses and the body’s response to extreme seasonal temperatures. Argentina, Australia, Chile, and Russia also have a large scientific presence on Antarctica. The Belgian Princess Elisabeth station is one of the most modern stations and the first to be carbon-neutral. Overland sightseeing flights operated out of Australia and New Zealand until the Mount Erebus disaster in 1979, when an Air New Zealand plane crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all of the 257 people on board. Tourism in Antarctica is, in part, ecologically focused with expeditions being offered for bird watching tours due to the high numbers of Adélie, King, and Gentoo penguins – among other species.

The Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international treaty that came into force in 1980, regulates fisheries, aiming to preserve ecological relationships. There exists a community of extremophile bacteria in the highly alkaline waters of Lake Untersee. It is thought to be likely that there exists a native bacterial community within the subterranean water body of Lake Vostok.

During the early Paleogene, the Antarctic land bridge continued to connect Antarctica with South America as well as to southeastern Australia. In West Antarctica, coniferous forests dominated throughout the Cretaceous period (146–66 Ma), though southern beech trees (Nothofagus) became prominent towards the end of the Cretaceous. There is evidence of a large number of volcanoes under the ice, which could pose a risk to the ice sheet if activity levels were to rise. The ice sheet extends to all but a few oases, which, with the exception of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, are located in coastal areas.

The first child born in the southern polar region was a Norwegian girl, Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen, born in Grytviken on 8 October 1913. Some of the research stations are staffed year-round, the winter-over personnel typically arriving from their home countries for a one-year assignment. The first semi-permanent inhabitants of regions near Antarctica (areas situated south of the Antarctic Convergence) were British and American sealers who used to spend a year or more on South Georgia, from 1786 onward. The existence of life there is thought to strengthen the argument for the possibility of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, which may have water beneath its water-ice crust. Even sea ice can harbour unique ecological communities, as it expels all salt from the water when it freezes, which accumulates into pockets of brine that also harbour dormant microorganisms. Smaller forms of life, such as sea cucumbers and free-swimming snails, are also found in both polar oceans.

During the Nimrod Expedition led by the British explorer Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David became the https://prabhu365-nepal.com/ne/ first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the south magnetic pole. The first confirmed landing on the continental mass of Antarctica occurred in 1895 when the Norwegian-Swedish whaling ship Antarctic reached Cape Adare. The American sealer Nathaniel Palmer, whose sealing ship was in the region at this time, may also have been the first to sight the Antarctic Peninsula. The oldest known human remains in the Antarctic region was a skull, dated from 1819 to 1825, that belonged to a young woman on Yamana Beach at the South Shetland Islands. Ecosystems are impacted by local and global threats, notably pollution, the invasion of non-native species, and the various effects of climate change. The pressure group Greenpeace established a base on Ross Island from 1987 to 1992 as part of its attempt to establish the continent as a World Park.

Until the 1970s, scientists relied on ground-based geophysical techniques such as seismic surveys of the Antarctic ice sheets to reveal hidden mountain ranges and peaks. Geologists, geophysicists, glaciologists, biologists, and other scientists have mapped and visited all of the continent’s mountain regions. A subsequent treaty, called the Madrid Protocol (adopted in 1991), prohibited mining, required environmental impact assessments for new activities, and designated the continent as a natural reserve. From the late 18th to the mid-20th century, whalers and sealers plied the rich seas that surround the continent. Antarctica is about 5.5 million square miles (14.2 million square km) in size, and thick ice covers about 98 percent of the land. It is also the world’s highest, driest, windiest, coldest, and iciest continent.

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The primary response by Antarctic Treaty parties has been to develop guidelines that set landing limits and closed or restricted zones on the more frequently visited sites. Tourists arrive by small or medium ship at specific scenic locations with accessible concentrations of iconic wildlife. The claims by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Norway do not overlap and are recognised by each other. The UK passed some of the areas it claimed to Australia and New Zealand after they achieved independence.