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The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic , referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle , was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
A speculative representation of Antarctica labelled as ' Terra Australis Incognita ' on Jan Janssonius's Zeekaart van het Zuidpoolgebied (1657), Het Scheepvaartmuseum The name given to the continent originates from the word antarctic, which comes from Middle French antartique or antarctique ('opposite to the Arctic') and, in turn, the Latin antarcticus ('opposite to the north').
The frozen continent of Antarctica was the last continent humanity set foot on. The first documented landings made below the Antarctic Circle took place in 1820, when Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and the crew of the Vostok and Mirny, as part of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, made land at Peter I Island and Alexander Island.
Hapgood mistakenly believed that Antarctica had been free of ice in 17,000 BC and partially ice-free as late as 4,000 BC. [108] This erroneous date range could have put the mapping of Antarctica contemporary with many known prehistoric societies. More recent ice core data shows that Antarctica was last free of ice over ten million years ago. [109]
#11 Where Penguins Are Found Naturally In The World ... and into the Indian Ocean. #13 Wall Sockets From Around The World ... Columbus was on a mission to find a direct route from Europe to Asia ...
The ancient sea, which existed from the early Late Cretaceous (100 Ma) to the earliest Paleocene (66 Ma), connected the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. The two land masses it created were Laramidia to the west and Appalachia to the east. At its largest extent, it was 2,500 feet (760 m) deep, 600 miles (970 km) wide and over 2,000 miles ...
The colder, stabler East Antarctica had been experiencing cooling until the 2000s. [22] [23] Around Antarctica, the Southern Ocean has absorbed more oceanic heat than any other ocean, [24] and has seen strong warming at depths below 2,000 m (6,600 ft). [25]: 1230 Around the West Antarctic, the ocean has warmed by 1 °C (1.8 °F) since 1955. [21]
Continent" meant, at that time, one of the three known continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, that adjoined each other (from Latin "continens"="touching") surrounded by the Ocean, which was divided by Africa into the Western, or Atlantic and Eastern, or Indian Oceans which contained the Earth's large and small islands. [16]