Antarctica Overview

Overview

Antarctica is a truly amazing continent in every way. It is the highest, coldest, driest, and least inhabitated continent on Earth. However, some creatures manage to survive naturally here, perhaps most noticeably the penguin but also seals and sea lions live on its land and in the Southern Ocean. Its landscape is unique and unforgiving, the entire land mass is covered in a huge ice cap that contains 70% of the world's fresh water, from this extends huge ice shelves out in to the sea which will occasionally drop huge blocks of ice in to the surrounding waters.

Great adventurers where attracted by the opportunity for exploration and the challenges it supplied. These early explorers produced stories of great heroism and many of the continents regions and features have been named after them. During these times territoral claims were made to areas of the continent by many countries, for example Britain's claim British Antarctic territories, which is the oldest, intersects with claims by other countries. However a multinational research program lead to the establishment of the antarctic treaty, which agreed that all sovreignty disputes should be set aside and the continent should be "a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science".

This treaty is still in place and the people who live out there are generally in goverment maintained research stations. Tourism has started to appear in this continent, and many trips are run from, South America and New Zealand. Most visits are from cruises, but flights across the continent are possible, some even fly in and then make their way to the south pole or climb mountains.