ANTARCTICA

Geographical Position. Discovery. The vast regions around the South Pole are called the Antarctic, as they lie directly opposite the Arctic (Greek «anti» means 'against'). The Antarctic regions comprise the Antarctic Continent, or Antarctica, the adjacent islands and the surrounding ocean waters.
Antarctica covers an area of about 14,000,000 square kilometres in the centre of the Antarctic Region. It is the most isolated of the world's continents and surrounded by vast expanses of ocean water on all sides.

Fig. 204. The steep wall of an ice barrier. A man and his sledge are shown underneath. In the background is Mount Erebus

Only at the beginning of the 19th century was Antarctica discovered, much later than the rest of the continents. The honour of its discovery fell on a Russian expedition under the command of Fadei Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. During a voyage lasting from 1819 to 1821 they rounded the continent on two sailing vessels, several times approaching the shores that no one had seen before. A number of Antarctic islands were discovered during this voyage and received Russian names: Alexander I Land next to the continent, Peter I Island in the Bellingshausen Sea and others. Bellingshausen and Lazarev left a detailed description of the lands they had discovered and put them down on the map, thus marking the beginning of the exploration of Antarctica.

The South Pole was reached only at the beginning of the 20th century, by the Norwegian explorer Amundsen at first (in 1911) and by the Englishman Scott a month later. Scott died of cold and exhaustion on his way back. Even today our knowledge of Antarctica is very scant. The only parts that are more or less explored are its

coasts and the adjacent islands. The interior remains almost entirely unexplored.

An Antarctic iceberg with its surface as flat as a table Natural Features. The continent of Antarctica consists for the most part of a huge plateau buried beneath an ice sheet four kilometres thick in places.

Fig. 205. An Antarctic iceberg with its surface as flat as a table

Owing to the great thickness of the sheet in certain areas its base may be below sea level, and the area of the actual land is, therefore, much smaller than that of the sheet. The South Pole is situated on a plateau of ice in the interior of the continent, almost three kilometres above sea level. From beneath

the ice lofty mountains rise to a height of from 5,000 to 6,000 metres above sea level. On one of the adjacent islands stands Mount Erebu's, an active volcano.
The most outstanding thing about the climate are the very low annual temperatures. This is a kingdom of permanent frost. In the interior the average temperature for the coldest month reaches 71° C below zero. On August 24, 1960, Soviet scientists recorded a temperature of 88.3° C below zero, the lowest temperature ever recorded on the surface of the earth. Frosts are severe in summer, too, reaching a temperature of 20° C below zero and lower. Even along the shore the temperature during the warmest month is usually below freezing point.
Penguins on an Antarctic island

Strong, driving winds, or barbers, often sweep over the continent, especially in the coastal regions. They reach tremendous force, passing into blizzards of blinding snow.

Fig 206. Penguins on an Antarctic island.They are not a bit afraid of the man and boldly come up to him, examining him curiously

Antarctica lies wholly within the South Pole glacial zone. It is almost entirely covered with a thick layer of ice, the so-called Antarctic ice cap. The land appears only where here and there a rock breaks through the ice cap. In such tiny places grow lichens and mosses. In the hollows are brackish and freshwater lakes.
The ice cap moves slowly towards the sea, forming a frosty-blue wall round the land, from 30 to 50 metres high (Fig. 204). Cold, green waves crash against the ice barrier. Enormous mountains of ice, or icebergs, break off from the continental ice cap and go drifting to sea. Some are dozens and even hundreds of kilometres long and a hundred or more metres high. The sea off the shores of Antarctica is covered with floes that often block the access to the shores (Fig. 205).

sily. But to make up for it, they are perfectly at home in and under the water (Fig. 206). The waters surrounding Antarctica are full of living creatures: seals of all kinds and enormous whales up to 33 metres long. Much of the ocean around the continent is frozen in winter. It retreats from the shores, taking everything living along. The interior of the continent consists of a number of plains, empty of life and covered with ice and snow.
Questions and Assignments.