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Antarctica: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Antarctica
Antarctica holds the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth, a staggering minus 89.2 degrees Celsius measured at the Russian Vostok Station on the 21st of July 1983. This extreme cold is not merely a weather event but a defining characteristic of a continent that functions as a polar desert, receiving less than 200 millimeters of precipitation annually across its interior. The ice sheet covering the land averages 2,160 meters in thickness, creating a landscape so vast that it is the fifth-largest continent, roughly 40% larger than Europe. Within this frozen expanse lies Lake Vostok, a subglacial lake discovered beneath Russia's Vostok Station, which has been sealed off from the surface for millions of years. Scientists now estimate that the water in this lake is replaced by the slow melting and freezing of ice caps every 13,000 years, creating a unique environment where life may have persisted in isolation since the time of the dinosaurs. The continent is so dry that some areas, known as blue-ice areas, lose more snow to sublimation than they gain from precipitation, leaving behind a barren landscape that resembles the surface of Mars more than any terrestrial ecosystem on Earth.
The Race to the Pole
The first confirmed landing on the continental mass of Antarctica occurred in 1895 when the Norwegian-Swedish whaling ship Antarctic reached Cape Adare, yet the race to the geographic South Pole would not begin until the early 20th century. British explorers Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David, and Alistair Mackay were the first to reach the magnetic South Pole in 1909, but the true prize lay further south. On the 14th of December 1911, an expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole, utilizing a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the doomed Terra Nova Expedition reached the pole, marking the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The American explorer Richard E. Byrd later led four expeditions during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, using the first mechanized tractors to conduct extensive geographical and scientific research. In 1937, Ingrid Christensen became the first woman to step onto the Antarctic mainland, while Caroline Mikkelsen had landed on an island of Antarctica earlier in 1935. The first child born in the southern polar region was a Norwegian girl, Solveig Gunbjørg Jacobsen, born in Grytviken on the 8th of October 1913, followed by Emilio Marcos Palma, the first person born south of the 60th parallel south and the first to be born on the Antarctic mainland at the Esperanza Base of the Argentine Army on the 7th of January 1978.
A Forest Under Ice
Common questions
What is the coldest temperature ever recorded on Antarctica and when was it measured?
Antarctica holds the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth, a staggering minus 89.2 degrees Celsius measured at the Russian Vostok Station on the 21st of July 1983. This extreme cold is a defining characteristic of a continent that functions as a polar desert, receiving less than 200 millimeters of precipitation annually across its interior.
Who was the first person to reach the geographic South Pole in Antarctica?
On the 14th of December 1911, an expedition led by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen from the ship Fram became the first to reach the geographic South Pole. This expedition utilized a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier to claim the true prize further south.
What was the climate of Antarctica during the Permian period?
During the Permian period, the land of Antarctica was dominated by glossopterids, an extinct group of seed plants with no close living relatives. Most prominently Glossopteris, a tree interpreted as growing in waterlogged soils that formed extensive coal deposits, covered the continent.
How many countries are parties to the Antarctic Treaty System and when was it signed?
Antarctica is governed by about 30 countries, all of which are parties of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System, which set aside the continent as a scientific preserve. The treaty was signed by twelve countries, including the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and the United States, and since 1959, a further 42 countries have acceded to the treaty.
What is the largest purely terrestrial animal found in Antarctica?
Native species of animals in Antarctica include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals, and tardigrades, with the flightless midge Belgica antarctica being the largest purely terrestrial animal in Antarctica. This midge reaches 1.2 centimeters in size and is found within the native species of the region.
Where is the largest neutrino detector in the world located within Antarctica?
The largest neutrino detector in the world, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, is at the Amundsen-Scott Station. It consists of around 5,500 digital optical modules, some of which reach a depth of 2,500 meters, that are held in 2 cubic kilometers of ice.
For a large proportion of the Phanerozoic, Antarctica was not a frozen wasteland but a tropical or temperate climate covered in forests. During the Permian period, the land was dominated by glossopterids, an extinct group of seed plants with no close living relatives, most prominently Glossopteris, a tree interpreted as growing in waterlogged soils that formed extensive coal deposits. Tetrapods first appeared in Antarctica during the Early Triassic epoch, with the earliest known fossils found in the Fremouw Formation of the Transantarctic Mountains. Synapsids, also known as mamm-like reptiles, included species such as Lystrosaurus and were common during the Early Triassic. The Antarctic Peninsula began to form during the Jurassic period, and Africa separated from Antarctica in the Jurassic around 160 million years ago, followed by the Indian subcontinent in the early Cretaceous about 125 million years ago. About 80 million years ago, flowering plants became the most diverse groups of plants on the continent. In West Antarctica, coniferous forests dominated throughout the Cretaceous period, though southern beech trees became prominent towards the end of the Cretaceous. Ammonites were common in the seas around Antarctica, and dinosaurs were also present, though only a few Antarctic dinosaur genera have been described. The climate of present-day Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation to form, with the flora largely consisting of bryophytes, including 25 species of liverworts and 100 species of mosses, and only three species of flowering plants found in the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Treaty of Peace
Antarctica is governed by about 30 countries, all of which are parties of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System, which set aside the continent as a scientific preserve and established freedom of scientific investigation and environmental protection. The treaty was signed by twelve countries, including the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Chile, Australia, and the United States, and since 1959, a further 42 countries have acceded to the treaty. According to the terms of the treaty, military activity, mining, nuclear explosions, and nuclear waste disposal are all prohibited in Antarctica. Tourism, fishing, and research are the main human activities in and around Antarctica. During the summer months, about 5,000 people reside at research stations, a figure that drops to around 1,000 in the winter. The Antarctic Treaty prohibits any military activity in Antarctica, including the establishment of military bases and fortifications, military maneuvers, and weapons testing. Sovereignty over regions of Antarctica is claimed by seven different countries, though the validity of the claims is not recognized universally. New claims on Antarctica have been suspended since 1959, although in 2015, Norway formally defined Queen Maud Land as including the unclaimed area between it and the South Pole. The Argentine, British, and Chilean claims overlap and have caused friction, with the UK passing some of the areas it claimed to Australia and New Zealand after they achieved independence.
Life in the Extremes
Native species of animals in Antarctica include mites, nematodes, penguins, seals, and tardigrades, with the flightless midge Belgica antarctica being the largest purely terrestrial animal in Antarctica, reaching 1.2 centimeters in size. Antarctic krill, which congregates in large schools, is the keystone species of the ecosystem of the Southern Ocean, being an important food organism for whales, seals, leopard seals, fur seals, squid, icefish, and many bird species, such as penguins and albatrosses. There are approximately 40 bird species that breed on or close to Antarctica, including species of petrels, penguins, cormorants, and gulls. The emperor penguin is the only penguin that breeds during the winter in Antarctica, and it and the Adélie penguin breed farther south than any other penguin. 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. Researchers uncovered ecosystems unexpectedly rich in large corals, ancient sponges, icefish, giant sea spiders, and even octopuses at depths of up to 1,000 meters. About 1,150 species of fungi have been recorded in the Antarctic region, of which about 750 are non-lichen-forming, and some species have evolved so they can grow inside extremely cold dung but can also pass through the intestines of warm-blooded animals.
The Silent Climate
The ice shelves of Antarctica were probably first seen in 1820, during a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, and the decades that followed saw further exploration by French, American, and British expeditions. The largest, United States' McMurdo Station, is capable of housing more than 1,000 people, and there are over 70 permanent and seasonal research stations on the continent. In 2017, there were more than 4,400 scientists undertaking research in Antarctica, a number that fell to just over 1,100 in the winter. The largest neutrino detector in the world, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, is at the Amundsen-Scott Station, consisting of around 5,500 digital optical modules, some of which reach a depth of 2,500 meters, that are held in 2 cubic kilometers of ice. Antarctica provides a unique environment for the study of meteorites, as the dry polar desert preserves them well, and meteorites older than a million years have been found. The Adelie Land meteorite, discovered in 1912, was the first to be found, and most meteorites come from asteroids, but a few meteorites found in Antarctica came from the Moon and Mars. Antarctic ice sheets are a central focus of contemporary climate research due to urgent questions about their stability and reaction to global warming, with researchers studying the ice sheets both through on-site fieldwork and remote sensing, typically using satellite technology.