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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.
Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe , and has an area of 14,200,000 km 2 (5,500,000 sq mi).
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 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 ...
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]
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 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen 's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing ...
William Smith (mariner) Williams Point on Livingston Island, the land discovered by William Smith on 19 February 1819. William Smith (c. 1790–1847) [1] was an English captain born in Blyth, Northumberland, who discovered the South Shetland Islands, an archipelago off the Graham Land in Antarctica. His discovery was the first ever made south ...