Antarctica

Antarctica listen is Earth's southernmost continent. Situated nearly entirely south of a Antarctic Circle together with surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being near twice the size of Australia, as living as has an area of 14,200,000 km^{2 5,500,000 sq mi. Most of Antarctica is specified by ice, with average thickness of 1.9 km 1.2 mi.}

Antarctica is on average the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average precipitation of over 200 mm 8 in along the sail and far less inland. approximately 70% of the world's lowest measured temperature on Earth, −89.2 °C −128.6 °F. The coastal regions cantemperatures over 10 °C 50 °F in summer. Native species of animals put mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Where vegetation occurs, this is the mostly in the take of lichen or moss.

The ice shelves of Antarctica were probably first seen in 1820, during a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The decades that followed saw further exploration in French, American, and British expeditions. The number one confirmed landing was by a Norwegian team in 1895. In the early 20th century, there were a few expeditions into the interior of the continent. British explorers were the first tothe magnetic South Pole in 1909, and the geographic south pole was first reached in 1911 by Norwegian explorers.

Antarctica is governed by about 30 countries, any of which are parties of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty System. According to the terms of the treaty, military activity, mining, nuclear explosions, and nuclear waste disposal are any prohibited in Antarctica. Tourism, fishing and research are the main human activities in and around Antarctica. During the summer months, about 5,000 people reside at research stations, a figure that drops to around 1,000 in the winter. Despite its remoteness, human activity has a significant affect on the continent via pollution, ozone depletion and climate change.

Geography

Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the [update], of the four coastal types, 44% of the sail is floating ice in the form of an ice shelf, 38% consists of ice walls that rest on rock, 13% is ice streams or the edge of glaciers, and the remaining 5% is introduced rock.

The lakes that lie at the base of the continental ice sheet occur mainly in the McMurdo Dry Valleys or various oases. Lake Vostok, discovered beneath Russia's Vostok Station, is the largest sub-glacial lake globally, and one of the largest lakes in the world. It was one time believed that the lake had been sealed off for millions of years, but scientists now estimate its water is replaced by the unhurried melting and freezing of ice caps every 13,000 years. During the summer, the ice at the edges of the lakes can melt, and liquid moats temporarily form. Antarctica has both saline and freshwater lakes.

Antarctica is divided up into oases, which, with the exception of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, are located in coastal areas. Several Antarctic ice streams flow to one of the numerous Antarctic ice shelves, a process pointed by ice-sheet dynamics.

East Antarctica comprises Ma.

Ross Island is the world's southernmost active volcanic crater. There is evidence of a large number of volcanoes under the ice, which could pose a risk to the ice sheet whether activity levels were to rise. The ice dome required as Dome Argus in East Antarctica is the highest Antarctic ice feature, at 4,091 metres 13,422 ft. this is the one of the world's coldest and driest places—temperatures there mayas low as −90 °C −130 °F, and the annual precipitation is 1–3 cm 0.39–1.18 in.