Antarctica

Antarctica is the only continent around the South Pole covered by permanent ice; its name means “anti-Arctic”, the opposite of the Arctic. Its area is about 14 million km², and it lies almost entirely inside the Antarctic Circle, very far from the other continents. The continent was discovered in 1820 by the Russian sailors F. Bellingshausen and M. Lazarev (16 January in the old calendar, 28 January in the new). The Norwegian R. Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911, and the Englishman R. Scott was second on 17 January 1912, but his party died on the return journey. In 1959 the Antarctic Treaty was signed: the continent may be used only for peaceful scientific purposes, military activity and (under a later protocol) mining are banned; more than 50 states now take part. Antarctica was once part of Gondwana; the Transantarctic Mountains divide it into two parts. The ice sheet averages about 2 000 m thick and is over 4 500 m at its thickest; so the continent’s average height (about 2 040 m) is higher than any other, while a large part of the land beneath the ice (especially in the west) is below sea level (the Bentley Trench about –2 555 m). The highest point is the Vinson Massif (4 892 m). The active volcano Erebus (3 794 m) is on the continent; mountain peaks sticking out of the ice are called nunataks. There are minerals (coal, iron, copper and others), but they are not mined.