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The frozen continent of Antarctica was the last continent humanity set foot on. The first documented landings made below the Antarctic Circle took place in 1820, when Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and the crew of the Vostok and Mirny, as part of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, made land at Peter I Island and Alexander Island.
East Antarctica is significantly larger than West Antarctica, and similarly remains widely unexplored in terms of its volcanic potential. While there are some indications that there is volcanic activity under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, there is not a significant amount of present information on the subject.
Surface water is enriched in salt from sea ice formation and cooled due to being exposed to a cold atmosphere during winter, which increases the density of this water mass. Due to its increased density, it forms overflows down the Antarctic continental slope and continues north along the bottom. It is the densest water in the open ocean, and ...
Sub-Antarctic Mode Water [1] (SAMW) is an important water mass in Earth's oceans. It is formed near the Sub-Antarctic Front on the northern flank of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current . The surface density of Sub-Antarctic Mode Water ranges between about 1026.0 and 1027.0 kg/m 3 , and the core of this water mass is often identified as a region ...
McMurdo Dry Valleys, Landsat 7 imagery acquired on December 18, 1999 The Dry Valleys are so named because of their extremely low humidity and lack of snow or ice cover. They are also dry because, in this location, the mountains are sufficiently high that they block seaward-flowing ice from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet from reaching the Ross
[1] [2] [3] When a glacier is very thick, the pressure at the bottom is great enough that liquid water can exist at temperatures where water would freeze, at regular pressures. The ice above Lake Vostok , the largest antarctic lake, is approximately 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) thick.
Antarctica is governed by about 30 countries, all of which are parties of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System. 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.
In 2022, a study narrowed the warming of the Central area of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet between 1959 and 2000 to 0.31 °C (0.56 °F) per decade, and conclusively attributed it to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activity. [50] East Antarctica cooled in the 1980s and 1990s, even as West Antarctica warmed (left-hand side).