About:
It is formed of land, the sea which surrounds the land and islands. The border of the region is sometimes considered the south Polar Circle, but the geographical border is the Antarctic convergence where the cold water in the south goes under the warm water in the north. This band had a width of 30-50 km and is situated at 50° SL in Atlantic Ocean and between 55-63° SL in Pacific Ocean.

Geographical Characteristics:
The continent is circular except the seaside from the Weddel Sea and Ross Sea and Antarctic half-isle. The South Pole is in the middle of the continent which has total surface of 13.8 million km² much more than Europe's surface. It is very isolated, situated at almost 1.000 km from South America, 2.700 km from Australia and 4.000 km from Africa.

Climate :
Antarctica has a worse climate than the Arctic Region because it is formed by land not only by the ocean. It has highlands and is surrounded by frozen sea which stop the warm currents. The temperature in the interior plateau is -30 Celsius degrees in the summer and under -50 Celsius degrees in the winter. The research center in Vostok registered a temperature of -88° C. The climate along the coast is better -5 Celsius degrees in the summer and -20 Celsius degrees in the winter. The wind blows from the continent with 300 km per hour, the storms are frequent but the total quantity of snow is though small because the air is so cold and it can not keep the water. The rainfall is only 5 cm per year, similar with the hottest deserts in the world because only a few quantity of snow melt ever. It is accumulated in thousands years.

Relief :
The ice covers 95% of the land surface and his medium thickness is of 2.450 m and a maximum of 4.500 m. The rest of 5% is the peaks of the mountains and some dry valleys called oasis along the coast. A big part of Antarctica is a huge plateau but there is also a big chains of mountains. The Transantarctic Rocky Chain it lands from Victoria Land to Coast Land and has peaks of 4500 m. Ellesworth Mountains has Vinson Peak (5.140 m), the highest peak in Antarctica. On the Ross Island there is an active volcano called Erebus. The Antarctic half-isle contains plateaus covered with ice and some beautiful fiords. The half-isle is connected with Tierra del Fuego through underwater Scotia Mountains which form South Shetland Islands, South Workney and South Sandwich Islands.

Faun :
On the continent the only animals are some minuscule insects but are many animals in the water along the coasts. The ocean contain small marine animals especially phosphorescent shrimps which are fished for trade by Japan and other countries. There also exist mollusks, whales and seals. The imperial penguins are the only birds which stay in the winter on the coast but in the summer there are a lot of seabirds which come here for reproduction.


Humans in Antarctica :
The men were attracted in the zone first for haunting whales and fishing, and after this for exploring. The fishing and the seals and whales haunting continue and there are many explorations here. Nowadays in a lot of Antarctic places exist scientific centers including searching the ozone stratum. There are 7 countries implicated in searching: Norway, Australia, France, New Zeeland, Chile, Great Britain and Argentina. The 12 countries which had searching centers between 1957-1958 signed a treaty in 1959 for keeping Antarctica as a neutral territory. Another 28 countries signed the treaty later and in 1991 they introduced some measures for environment protection and interdiction for mining for at least 50 years.

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Tags: polar circle, atlantic, pacific, ocean, weddel sea, ross sea	[edit tags]

Date Added: 14 November '06

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