Antarctic History
History of antarctic exploration
Antarctic history has been formed by the race in the early part of the 19th century to discover Antarctica, it was thought to exist as explorers had already explored the North Pole and assumed that there must be a south pole too, although no one set foot on the continent until at least 1821.
Later that century the race continued to make it to the South Pole, including the efforts of the famous explorers Shackelton and Scott.
The result of the influx of explorers from seven nations are that these seven all laid claims to slices of the continent. In 1959 a treaty was signed by the claimant nations to agree to freeze or shelve their claims indefinitely. Its also stated within the treaty that Antarctica be used for peaceful purposes only, all scientific information must also be shared and it is also not to be used for the disposal of Nuclear materials.
Travel map of the Antarctic Peninsula Region and map of the Antarctic Continent includes Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands (Malvinas), South Georgia, South Orkneys, South Shetlands and enlargement of the Ross Island region
Featuring:
- Illustrated biographies of 30 noted explorers
- Colour photos of Antarctic scenes and wildlife
- Five heroic routes
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Antarctic Geography
Antarctica used to be part of the super-continent called Godwana, which was made up of present day South America, Africa, India and Australia. After Godwana began to break up and, as it did so, continents, subcontinents and islands were formed.
About 120 million years ago the pole moved on to the continent of Antarctica. This event was followed by the northward movement of the surrounding continent.
Ice Sheets
The cooling that led to the first ice sheets 34 million years ago, began just a few million years earlier. The ice cap, which now envelops the Antarctic continent, covers two distinct geological areas.
East Antarctica is a large landmass with a crustal thickness of between 30 and 40 km. West Antarctica, however, is an archipelago of islands with a crustal thickness of only 10 km in some places.
The junction between East Antarctica and West Antarctica lies hidden beneath the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf. Due to the weight of the ice cover, most of the rock surface of Antarctica is now depressed below sea level.
