The ice-free Schirmacher Oasis, which now hosts the Maitri and Novolazarevskaya research stations, was spotted from the air by Richardheinrich Schirmacher ( who named it after himself ) shortly before the Schwabenland left the Antarctic coast on 6 February 1939.

The institute also hosts the secretariats of the International Glaciological Society and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, and is part of the NERC Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current ( ACC ) is the strongest current system in the world oceans, linking the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific basins.

However in the southern hemisphere, owing to the ozone hole phenomenon, the lowest amounts of column ozone found anywhere in the world are over the Antarctic in the southern spring period of September and October.

They are found in all oceans of the world, although they are particularly common in Antarctic waters.

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

The only brown rat-free zones in the world are the Arctic, the Antarctic, some especially isolated islands, the province of Alberta in Canada, and certain conservation areas in New Zealand.

Cherry-Garrard noted: “ They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world, either like children or like old men, full of their own importance.

The park ’ s lush rainforests include one of the largest upland subtropical rainforest remnants in the world and the most northern Antarctic Beech cool temperate rainforests in Australia.

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.

This is a truly cosmopolitan genus, able to live under adverse conditions, and occurring around the world except in the Arctic and Antarctic, Madagascar, Australia ( with the exception of the introduced Cane Toad ), and New Guinea and Oceania.

There is no significant land anywhere around the world at the latitudes of the Drake Passage, which is important to the unimpeded flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current which carries a huge volume of water ( about 600 times the flow of the Amazon River ) through the Passage and around Antarctica.

Sparrman published several works, the best known of which is his account of his travels in South Africa and with Cook, published in English as A voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic polar circle, and round the world: But chiefly into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772 to 1776 ( 1789 ).

The Antarctic Peninsula is a part of the world that is experiencing extraordinary warming.

Although this very remote part of the world has never been inhabited and is protected by the Antarctic Treaty System, which bans industrial development, waste disposal and nuclear testing, there is still a threat to these fragile ecosystems from increasing tourism, primarily on cruises across the Southern Ocean from the port of Ushuaia, Argentina.

Because Antarctica used to be warmer and supported dense conifer and cycad forest and because all the continents were fused into a giant supercontinent called Pangaea, many ancient Antarctic wildlife share relatives elsewhere in the world.

Common water masses in the world ocean are: Antarctic Bottom Water ( AABW ), North Atlantic Deep Water ( NADW ), Circumpolar Deep Water ( CDW ), Antarctic Intermediate Water ( AAIW ), Subantarctic Mode Water ( SAMW ), Arctic Intermediate Water ( AIW ), the central waters of various oceanic basins, and various surface waters.

The Congress did not, however, endorse Borchgrevink's ideas, instead passing a general resolution in support of Antarctic exploration, proposing that " the various scientific societies throughout the world should urge, in whatever way seems to them most effective, that this work be undertaken before the close of the century ".

He is a world renowned specialist in major climatic shifts based on his analysis of Antarctic and Greenland ice.

Treasure-hunter, Antarctic explorer, soldier, aeronaut, entrepreneur, big-game hunter and movie-maker, Francis Howard Bickerton not only made a major contribution to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911 – 14 but was also recruited for Sir Ernest Shackleton's " Endurance " Expedition ; he fought with the infantry, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force in both world wars and was wounded on no fewer than four separate occasions.

Worsley wrote: " We knew it would be the hardest thing we had ever undertaken, for the Antarctic winter had set in, and we were about to cross one of the worst seas in the world ".

Oxford University Press ' online dictionary defines " the seven seas " as " all the oceans of the world ( conventionally listed as the Arctic, Antarctic, North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Oceans ).

Bitter katabatic winds spilling down from the Antarctic polar plateau into McMurdo Sound demonstrate Antarctica's status as the coldest and windiest continent in the world.

This process repeats itself along Antarctica ’ s coastal areas, spreading cold sea water outward into the world ’ s ocean basins ( Australian Government Antarctic Division ).

Some 98 % of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, the world's largest ice sheet and also its largest reservoir of fresh water.

Before whaling, the largest population was in the Antarctic, numbering approximately 239, 000 ( range 202, 000 to 311, 000 ).

Probably the largest population lives in Antarctic waters, where they range up to the edge of the pack ice and are believed to venture into the denser pack ice, finding open leads much like beluga whales in the Arctic.

The largest Antarctic ozone hole recorded as of September 2006

Image of the largest Antarctic ozone hole ever recorded ( September 2006 ), over the Southern pole

The Antarctic beech forest, found at the end of the North Plateau Road, is estimated to be up to 1, 000 years old and forms the largest compact southern beech forest in existence.

The largest iceberg on record was an Antarctic tabular iceberg of over

Today Ross Island is home to New Zealand's Scott Base, and the largest Antarctic settlement, the U. S. Antarctic Program's McMurdo Station.

The southern elephant seal ( Mirounga leonina ) of Antarctic and subantarctic waters is the largest carnivoran of all time, with bull males reaching a maximum length of and maximum weight of 5, 000 kilograms.

The fourth culminating expedition, Operation Highjump, is the largest Antarctic expedition to date.

The ecoregion is the largest remnant of Australia's rain forest flora, home to ancient assemblage of plants, called the Antarctic flora, presently characteristic of New Zealand and southern Chile, and that once covered much of Australia and Antarctica until about 15 million years ago.

The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1, 258 residents, and serves as the United States Antarctic science facility.

* The fulmarine petrels include the largest procellariids, the giant petrels, as well as the two fulmar species, the Snow Petrel, the Antarctic Petrel, and the Cape Petrel.

It is the largest and the smallest types — the Blue Whale and Antarctic Minke Whale — that occupy the coldest waters in the extreme south ; the Fin Whale tends not to approach so close to the ice shelf ; the Sei Whale tends to stay further north again.

The leopard seal ( Hydrurga leptonyx ), also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic ( after the southern elephant seal ).

The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth.

Botanist Ronald Good identified six floristic kingdoms ( Boreal or Holarctic, Neotropical, Paleotropical, South African, Australian, and Antarctic ), the largest natural units he determined for flowering plants.

It is claimed by the United Kingdom, for which it represents their largest remaining overseas island, part of the British Antarctic Territory, while for Chile and Argentina it is part of the Antártica Chilena Province and Tierra del Fuego Province respectively.

* Joinville Island, the largest island of the Joinville Island group lying off the northeastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula

Image: 160658main2_OZONE_large_350. png | Image of the largest Antarctic ozone hole recorded to date ( September 2006 ).

# consolidating and extending United States sovereignty over the largest practicable area of the Antarctic continent ( This was publicly denied as a goal even before the expedition ended );