History of Antarctica

The most ancient maps show a Terra Australis. These show bays, rivers and towns labelled in peculiar terms, and were thought notional until roughly thirty years after the International Geophysical Year, when under-ice maps of the continent (generated by seismic echography) were first compared with fair copies of ancient maps from the Turkish Caliphatic Library (one of the most ancient sources known). Allowing for some hand-copying errors, there is a close correspondence between ancient maps and known under-ice fetures of the continent. Some people believe that this means Antarctica was mapped and perhaps settled at some time in prehistory when it was not covered with ice. Some investigators have said that Antarctica may have been the lost continent of Atlantis.

The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica was made by Edward Bransfield in Febuary 1820.

After the North Magnetic Pole was located in 1831, explorers and scientists began looking for the South Magnetic Pole. One of those explorers, James Clark Ross, identified its approximate location, but was unable to reach it. He also mapped the Ross Ice Shelf, which was later named for him.

On December 14, 1911 Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole, followed by Robert Falcon Scott over a month later.

The Antarctic Treaty was signed on December 1, 1959 and came into force on June 23, 1961.

In March 2002 the 2,120 square statute mile Iceberg B-22 broke off from the Thwaites Ice Tongue and the Larsen B ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula shattered into small fragments. The ice shelf was 200 metres thick and had a surface area of 3,250 square kilometers.