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The Geographic South Pole is marked by the stake on the right NASA image showing Antarctica and the South Pole in 2005. The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Earth from the North Pole, at a distance of 20,004 km (12,430 miles) in all directions.
Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle (one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the world), Antarctica is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. [note 2] Rivers exist in Antarctica; the longest is the Onyx.
A map of the Antarctic region, including the Antarctic Convergence and the 60th parallel south The Antarctic Plate. The Antarctic (/ æ n ˈ t ɑːr t ɪ k / or / æ n ˈ t ɑːr k t ɪ k /, American English also / æ n t ˈ ɑːr t ɪ k / or / æ n t ˈ ɑːr k t ɪ k /; commonly / æ ˈ n ɑːr t ɪ k /) [Note 1] is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around ...
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. The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn in the 15th and ...
The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, [1][note 4] comprises the southernmost waters of the world ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. [5] With a size of 21,960,000 km 2 (8,480,000 sq mi), it is the second-smallest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific ...
The Antarctic continent, located in the Earth 's southern hemisphere, is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle. It is washed by the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean or, depending on definition, the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It has an area of more than 14.2 million km 2.
Ross discovered the "enormous" Ross Ice Shelf, correctly observing that it was the source of the tabular icebergs seen in the Southern Ocean, and helping to found the science of glaciology. [19] He identified the Transantarctic Mountains and the volcanoes Erebus and Terror, named after his ships. [20] [21]
Roald Amundsen started his South Pole expedition in 1911 from the Bay of Whales, which was located at the shelf. In the western parts of the Ross Sea, McMurdo Sound is a port that is usually free of ice during the summer. The southernmost part of the Ross Sea is Gould Coast, which is approximately 200 miles (320 km) from the geographic South Pole.