Brief History of Antarctica

Ice Berg

Antarctica is the southernmost continent of the World. The land-based continent is the highest, driest, coldest and emptiest, place on the earth. Ice sheet covers all but 2.4% of Antarctica,s 14 million square kilometers. The ice-bound continent is roughly circular in shape, unbroken by sea and is surrounded by the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Antarctic a is divided into three parts called East Antarctica, West Antarctica and Antarctic Peninsula.

Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km of ice. That is, approximately 61 percent of all fresh water on the Earth is held in the Antarctic ice sheet, an amount equivalent to 70 m of water in the world's oceans. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, but in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level. The land in this area would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there. There are Penguins and abundant sea life - but there are no Eskimos, or polar bears, which are found in the Arctic. The existence of Antarctica was only hypothesis until it was first sighted in 1820-21. No one set foot on the continent until 1895. Antarctica's history is packed full of heroic exploration and survival. No nation owns Antarctica. The Antarctica Treaty, which has been signed by 45 countries, reserves the area south of 60 degrees as a zone for the peaceful conduct of research. Treaty nations coordinate and cooperate to maximize research results and logistics requirements. This icy continent, much larger than India and China put together has been source of interest for the inquisitive minds for a long time. Remote and extreme, Antarctica is now emerging as an important key in the understanding of global and environmental concerns. Its unique features have provided scientists with special opportunities over the last 35 years to investigate the origin of the continents, the pollution of the globe and changes in World climate. Meteorology from from Antarctica have provided the factors that are essential in forecasting the weather patterns of the Southern Hemisphere and the circulation pattern of the World ocean system. The ice cores retrieved from the continent act as a repository of information on the paleoclimate and environmental history of the earth. It is clear that Antarctic science will increasingly contribute to our understanding of these and other global problems.