The Antarctic Treaty and related agreements, collectively called the Antarctic Treaty System or ATS, regulate international relations with respect to Antarctica, Earth's only continent without a native human population.

The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters, and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence.

* 1959 – Cold War: Opening date for signature of the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent.

* 1820 – A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev discovers the Antarctic continent approaching the Antarctic coast.

* 1961 – Cold War: the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.

* 1978 – Emilio Palma, first person born on the Antarctic continent

The Kerguelen Islands, along with the islands of Amsterdam and St. Paul, and the Crozet archipelago were officially annexed by France in 1893, and were included as possessions in the French constitution in 1924 ( in addition to that portion of Antarctica claimed by France and known as Adélie Land ; as with all Antarctic territorial claims, France's possession on the continent is held in abeyance until a new international treaty is ratified that defines each claimant's rights and obligations ).

Shortly thereafter, the United States began its own program to search for Antarctic meteorites, operating along the Transantarctic Mountains on the other side of the continent: the ANtarctic Search for METeorites ( ANSMET ) program.

* December 1 – Cold War – Antarctic Treaty: 12 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, sign a landmark treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on that continent ( the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War ).

On this second voyage Cook crossed three times into the Antarctic Circle to determine whether the fabled great southern continent existed.

The ozone hole occurs during the Antarctic spring, from September to early December, as strong westerly winds start to circulate around the continent and create an atmospheric container.

Where Schöner departs most conspicuously from Waldseemüller is in his globe ’ s depiction of an Antarctic continent, called by him Brasilie Regio.

In 1513, the Ottoman Turkish admiral Piri Reis drew a world map that has been said to show part of the Antarctic continent.

He thereby laid open the way for future Antarctic exploration by exploding the myth of a habitable southern continent.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying — the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole.

Mawson chose to lead his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, to King George V Land and Adelie Land, the sector of the Antarctic continent immediately south of Australia, which at the time was almost entirely unexplored.

The Adélie penguins breed from October to February on shores around the Antarctic continent.

Mirages on the Antarctic continent tend to be even more spectacular than in Arctic regions, creating, for example, a series of apparent sunsets and sunrises while in reality the sun remains under the horizon.

The continent of Antarctica forms a land mass covering much of the area within the Antarctic Circle.

The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat headquarters have been located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since September 2004.

The islands are located from the Isla de los Estados in Argentina ( and from the Argentine mainland ); from Chile ; west of the Shag Rocks ( South Georgia ) and north of the British Antarctic Territory ( which overlaps with the Argentine and Chilean claims to Antarctica in that region ).

In December 1821, Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer looking for seal breeding grounds, sighted what is now known as the Antarctic Peninsula, located in the continent's northwestern quadrant.

Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at above mean sea level.

One small stand of cool temperate rainforest, dominated by Antarctic Beech, is located at the Best of All Lookout.

Crater Lake is often cited as the seventh deepest lake in the world, but this ranking excludes Lake Vostok, which is situated under nearly of Antarctic ice, and the recent soundings of San Martín Lake, which is located on the border of Chile and Argentina.

The community got its name from the Little America motel which was purposefully located in a remote location as a haven, not unlike the base camp the polar explorer Richard E. Byrd set up in the Antarctic in 1928.

On Earth, the Arctic Circle is located at a latitude of N, and the Antarctic Circle is located at a latitude of S.

Casey Station is a permanent base in Antarctica managed by the Australian Antarctic Division ( AAD ) located on Vincennes Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Mawson Station is located at Holme Bay in Mac Robertson Land, East Antarctica, named in January 1930 by Sir Douglas Mawson during the first British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition ( BANZARE ) voyage, aboard Discovery.

McMurdo Station is a U. S. Antarctic research center located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica.

In 1991, the National Science Foundation ( NSF ), which manages the U. S. Antarctic Program ( USAP ), honoured his memory by dedicating a state-of-the-art laboratory complex in his name, the Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center ( CSEC ) located in McMurdo Station.

On the Bygdøy peninsula are located the Viking ship Museum, Norsk Folkemuseum ( Norwegian Museum of Cultural History ), the Maritime Museum, the Kon-Tiki Museum and the ship Fram, used by Roald Amundsen for his Antarctic expedition.

entitled " Frozen ", Gregory House is tasked to help a female patient by videoconference who was located at ' an Antarctic outpost '; this was likely modeled on the Jerri Nielsen incident mentioned above.

The unit operates six LC-130s between Christchurch, New Zealand, and a number of U. S. National Science Foundation stations located on the Antarctic ice pack, November 5, 2001.

* The Almirante Brown Antarctic Base, an Antarctic base located in Paradise Bay.

facility located in the Antarctic.

The Pacific-Antarctic Ridge ( PAR ) is a divergent tectonic plate boundary located on the seafloor of the South Pacific Ocean, separating the Pacific Plate from the Antarctic Plate.

Halley Research Station, run by the British Antarctic Survey, is located on the Brunt Ice Shelf floating on the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.

Vostok Research Station is located at, about 1, 300 km from the Geographic South Pole, at the center of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and within the Australian Antarctic Territory.

The Antarctic ( or ) is a polar region, specifically the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole.

Since Chile extends from a point about north of the Tropic of Capricorn to a point hardly more than north of the Antarctic Circle, a broad selection of the Earth's climates can be found in this country.

Due to gradual changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis, the Antarctic Circle is slowly moving.

By definition, the positions of the Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Arctic Circle and Antarctic Circle all depend on the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the plane of its orbit around the sun, known technically as the " obliquity of the ecliptic ".

This is because: there is no land bridge between Southern Hemisphere countries and the Antarctic zone capable of bringing in cold air without the temperature-mitigating effects of extensive tracts of water ; the vastly greater amount of ocean in the Southern Hemisphere at all latitudes ; at this time in Earth's geologic history the Earth has an orbit which brings it in closer to the Southern Hemisphere for its warmer seasons ; there is a circumpolar flow of air ( the roaring 40s and 50s ) uninterrupted by large land masses ; no equivalent jet streams ; and the peculiarities of the reversing ocean currents in the Pacific.

The most important areas of pack ice are the polar ice packs formed from seawater in the Earth's polar regions: the Arctic ice pack of the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean.

The most important areas of pack ice are the polar ice packs formed from seawater in the Earth's polar regions: the Arctic ice pack of the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic ice pack of the Southern Ocean.

The middle latitudes ( mid-latitudes, sometimes midlatitudes ) are between 23 ° 26 ' 22 " North and 66 ° 33 ' 39 " North, and between 23 ° 26 ' 22 " South and 66 ° 33 ' 39 " South latitude, or, the Earth's temperate zones between the tropics and the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions.

The land mass of the Earth's south pole, in Antarctica, is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet.

However, the Earth's axial tilt means that the regions inside the Antarctic circle would still have experienced a polar night: a period of sunless darkness and cold of up to six months, during which only the hardiest life forms could survive.