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Antarctica

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Antarctica is a continent surrounding the Earth's South Pole and almost entirely covered by ice. It is not to be confused with the arctic, which is located near the Earth's North Pole. Antarctica has no permanent residents, but a number of governments maintain permanent research stations on the continent. Many of the stations are staffed around the year. These include:

Edward Bransfield[?] discovered Antarctica on January 30, 1820.

Territorial claims

Old claims:
  • German: 20°E to 10°W; Overlapped Norwegian claim; Claimed: 1939-1945.
  • South African: xxx°y to xxx°y; Claimed: 1963-1994.

The Antarctic Treaty defers these claims and most other nations do not recognize them. No other nations have made claims themselves, although the United States and Russia assert the right to do so. No formal claims have been made in the sector between 90 degrees west and 150 degrees west.

Typical for Antarctica are gigantic table-top icebergs. The continent is surrounded by a large pack ice zone, in which one of the most remarkable ecosystems of the planet developed, based on the Antarctic krill Euphausia superba. It is the food of whales, penguins, fish, seals and many birds.


(photo Uwe Kils) from [1] (http://www.ecoscope.com/iceberg/index.htm))

Satellite image - Large version (/upload/6/67/AntarcticaSatelliteImage.jpg)

Additional topics

Antartica is also one of the eight ecozones put forward by Miklos Udvardy.

External link


Ecozones

Nearctic | Palearctic | Afrotropic | Indomalaya | Australasia | Neotropic | Oceania | Antarctic


Antarctic biomes

Tundra



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