ANTARCTICA

• Antarctica lies wholly within the antarctic polar circle.

• The total area of the continent is 14 mln sq km.

• The average height over the sea level is 580 m.

• Antarctica is the most isolated continent surrounded by the oceanic water on all sides.

• It is the only continent in the Earth covered with ice all over.

• The nearest continent is South America.

• Antarctica was discovered only at the beginning of the 19th century. The honour of discovery fell on a Russian expedition under the command of Fadei Bellingshausen and Michael Lazarev.

• The South Pole was reached in 1911 by the Norwegian explorer Raul Amundsen and by the English explorer Robert Scott a month later.

• The expedition under the command of Amundsen was well - prepared. There trip lasted 99 days and they returned to Norway safe and sound. As for Scott, he and his people died on the way back.

• Antarctica is the coldest continent in the world. It is the kingdom of permanent frost. The climate here is very severe. The to in winter is -70oC, in summer -30oC. The high atmospheric pressure belt forms the antarctic air masses, which are very cold and dry. The antarctic climatic belt is situated here. On the coastlines and near-by islands the to in summer is 0o

+ 10oC, in winter -16o-32oC. They lie in the subantarctic belt.

• Antarctica is situated in the antarctic desert zone. The vegetation and the animal life are poor here. Life exists mainly on the coasts and islands.

• In summer, there are seaweeds, moss and lichen. The seas are rich in plankton and fish.

• Seals, sea elephants, fur seals and whales live there. The birds as gulls, cormorants, petrels and albatrosses make their nests on the rocks in summer.

• There are also 17 kinds of penguins in Antarctica. Antarctic Penguins, Subantarctic Penguins, Adele Penguins and King Penguins are among them.

• You can find red, brown and green seaweeds. They grow rapidly in spring and summer, when water gets a little warmer and the sunbeams can reach the bottom. A lot of sea animals eating seaweeds live there. They are small fish, different crabs and starfish, bath-sponges and others.

• Antarctica doesn’t belong to any state. On October 15, 1959 in Washington D.C. 12 countries signed an agreement which made Antarctica a neutral territory designed for scientific research only. Nowadays 38 countries are committed to this agreement.

There are 140 stations here , 20

of which belong to Russia

• It is interesting to mention, that Russian stations are situated in the most dangerous regions of the continent.

Antarctica