All the ponies died, and most members of the expedition turned back. Only four men from the Terra Nova expedition including Scott's friend Wilson proceeded with Scott to the pole.
Amundsen traveled by dog sled, with a team of explorers, skiers, and musher s. The foresight and navigation paid off: Amundsen reached the pole in December He called the camp Polheim, and the entire Fram expedition successfully returned to their resupply depots, ship, and Norway. More than a month later, Scott reached the South Pole, only to be met by Amundsen's camp—he had left a tent, equipment, and supplies for Scott, as well as a note for the King of Norway to be delivered if the Fram expedition failed to make it back.
Disheartened, Scott's team slowly headed back north. They faced colder temperatures and harsher weather than Amundsen's team. They had fewer supplies. Suffering from hunger, hypothermia , and frostbite , all members of Scott's South Pole expedition died fewer than 18 kilometers 11 miles from a resupply depot. American explorer Richard E. Byrd became the first person to fly over the South Pole, in , and the Amundsen—Scott South Pole Station was established thirty years later.
However, the next overland expedition to the South Pole was not made until , more than 40 years after Amundsen and Scott's deadly race. The expedition was led by legendary New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary, who had become the first person to scale Mount Everest in Transportation to the South Pole Almost all scientists and support personnel, as well as supplies, are flown in to the South Pole.
Hardy military aircraft usually fly from McMurdo Station, an American facility on the Antarctic coast and the most populated area on the continent.
The extreme and unpredictable weather around the pole can often delay flights. In , the U. It takes about 40 days for supplies to reach the pole from McMurdo, but the route is far more reliable and inexpensive than air flights. The highway can also supply much heavier equipment such as that needed by the South Pole's astrophysics laboratories than aircraft.
Resources and Territorial Claims The entire continent of Antarctica has no official political boundaries, although many nations and territories claim land there. No Time at the Poles Time is calculated using longitude. For instance, when the sun seems directly overhead, the local time is about noon. However, all lines of longitude meet at the poles, and the sun is only overhead twice a year at the equinoxes. For this reason, scientists and explorers at the poles record time-related data using whatever time zone they want.
The highway was created by filling in deep crevasses in the Antarctic ice sheet. The only vehicles on the highway are specialized tractors equipped with specialized towing sleds.
After the last supply plane has left the facility not to return for six months , they watch two movies: The Thing about a parasitic alien being terrorizing an Antarctic research facility and The Shining about a caretaker isolated at a remote hotel in the winter. Sea level is determined by measurements taken over a year cycle. The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.
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The cryosphere contains the frozen parts of the planet. It includes snow and ice on land, ice caps, glaciers, permafrost, and sea ice. As the world warms due to increasing greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere by humans, the snow and ice are melting. At sea, this exposes more of the dark ocean below the ice, and on land, the dark vegetation below.
These dark surfaces then absorb the solar radiation causing more melting. This creates a positive feedback loop, which exacerbates the impacts of climate change.
Learn more about this vulnerable sphere with this collection of resources. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. Skip to content. Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google Classroom. Encyclopedic Entry Vocabulary. The tent at the right is a replica of the tent used by Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole.
Photograph by Calee Allen, MyShot. Earth's fifth-largest continental landmass. Big Bang. Also called a dog sledge. There are two equinoxes a year. Ernest Shackleton.
North Pole. Roald Amundsen. Robert Falcon Scott. Robert Peary. South Pole. Media Credits The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.
Media If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Text Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service. Interactives Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. The biggest base in Antarctica is by far the McMurdo Station which is a United States Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island, an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica.
The station also features repair facilities, dormitories, administrative buildings, a firehouse, power plant, water distillation plant, wharf, stores, warehouses, a science support center, as well water, sewer, telephone, and power lines.
It even has a few clubs, a brewery and a Burger King. The station also hosts tourists sometimes. Other stations, however, are much smaller and less equipped. Esperanza Base, for instance, is one of only two civilian bases in the Antarctic, but it can only host 55 people. The Vostok Base, one of the most remote permanent bases in the Antarctic, essentially consists of only a few buildings and it can only host 25 people.
Vostok is the coldest on earth in terms of mean annual temperature and arguably recorded the coldest temperature ever recorded by humans in degrees Celsius.
Esperanza is the place where the warmest Antarctic temperature was measured: a whopping 20 degrees in Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40, subscribers can't be wrong. Notably, there is a greenhouse at the South Pole station.
All were produced hydroponically, using only water and nutrients with no soil. The greenhouse is the only source of fresh fruit and vegetables during the winter. Despite having no true human inhabitants, Antarctica has had at least eleven human births, starting with one in at an Argentine base followed by seven more at that base and three more at a Chilean base.
Emilio Marcos Palma born 7 January is the first documented human to be born in Antarctica, after his mother, who was then only seven months pregnant, was airlifted to Esperanza Base, in order to complete her pregnancy in the base. His father was the head of the Argentine Army detachment at the base. Argentina currently has 13 bases opened on the continent, comparable to what Chile, Russia, and Australia maintain with the US having the largest Antarctic population.
The Antarctic bases are essentially research stations, but they do also serve a geopolitical role. Seven states currently have territorial claims on the continent — which funny enough, make the continent look like a pie chart:. Antarctica holds little real value for now, but this could change in the future. The Antarctic Treaty entered into force in by the twelve countries whose scientists had been active in and around Antarctica.
They agreed to only use Antarctica for peaceful purposes research , banning all mining and military activity.
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