There Have Been Earlier Explorers On The Road To The History Of Antarctic

The journey of an American adventurer to Antarctica has sparked heightened interest in the remote and mysterious part of the world.

Antarctica measure about five million square miles and is completely covered by an ice sheet. It's the world's largest ice mass.

There are scientists who have calculated that this ice sheet is 2,000 feet in thickness, but others feel number to be insufficient.

All of the solid land, minus the most tall mountains and some of the coastal areas, have been covered in ice.

Just like a glacier, the ice passes in valleys between the high mountains as it heads to the sea. The mountain chains front the vast central plateau, which rises eight to ten thousand feet above sea level.

You'll find the South Pole there.

Antarctica has been separated into four quadrants which derive their names from lands to the north. The quadrants are called the African,, Pacific and American.

There is virtually little evidence regarding the Pacific and African coasts of Antarctica. Just a small section of the American quadrant's coast has been explored, but the quadrant is very well known.

It includes the Ross Sea area.

The quadrant contains South Victoria Land, Oates Land, King George V Land, Adelle Land and Wilkes Land.

It is bordered on the East by the Ross Sea and the West by Queen Mary Land. The western edge of the Ross Sea is a mountainous area, with the mountains emanating from an expansive sheet of shelf ice of approximately 160,000 square miles known as the Ross Barrier.

This is where the explorer set up his base camp. He was near a naturally formed harbor called the Bay of Whales.

Two volcanoes fill Ross Island. They are called Mount Erebus and Mount Terror.

Spanning over Ross Sea to King Edward VII land, the barrier is over 400 miles in length. It is 400 miles wide.

The barrier is a great example of shelf ice, which can only be seen in Antarctica. The barrier was made by sections of glaciers that traveled down from the mountains and then entered the sea in the Ross Sea area.

At present, the back country deposits ice to the Ross Sea by way of glacial channels ranging from five to fifteen miles in width and sometimes one hundred miles in length. Explorers are unsure if the Barrier floats or rests on the bottom of the ocean.

The western edge of the Pacific quadrant is bordered by the Ross Sea. Large rocks jut from the land in King Edward VII land, which can be found there.

The adventurer made his way to this sector on an initial expanded flight from the Bay of Whales, and it was then that he observed the Scott Nunataks and the Alexandra Mountains.

A new island was discovered, fourteen mountain peaks were added to the map, and the explorer also captured a look at the previously unknown back country.

The information gathered by his flights has proved invaluable, and may even let geographers finally create a clear map of the Pacific quadrant coastline.

Explorers frequent the American quadrant's Coats Land, Charcot Land and Graham Land, in addition to the Weddell sea area.

Determining that Graham Land is actually a separate island from Antarctica was the result of another flying explorer attempting to evaluate the entire continent over time.

Continental division is the major geographical issue facing Antarctica today. The American quadrant's Weddell Sea is just about opposite the quadrant's Ross Sea.

Scientific research is unlimited in Antarctica. Geographers are interested in gaining specific facts able to provide a through and precise mapping of the coastlines, and a thorough view of the mountains and plateau containing the South Pole.

There is a need for further examination of the glaciology of the Antarctic continent, the study of outcroppings of rock, and glacial moraines which are encased in the ice covered land which geologist are currently studying.

by: John Chambers

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