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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.
The climate of present-day Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation to form. [127] A combination of freezing temperatures, poor soil quality, and a lack of moisture and sunlight inhibit plant growth, causing low species diversity and limited distribution. The flora largely consists of bryophytes (25 species of liverworts and 100 species ...
Soils in Antarctica are nearly two-dimensional habitats, with most biological activity limited to the top four or five inches by the permanently frozen ground below. [4] Environments can be limiting due to soil properties such as unfavorable mineralogy, texture, structure, salts, pH, or moisture relationships. [5]
There are also no birds that reside in Antarctica. Though, it has been known that various birds from South America have been spotted in Antarctica. Two studies have assessed the contributions of soil invertebrates to the polar ecosystem in Antarctica, suggesting that biotic interactions play crucial roles in such a seemingly simple ecosystem ...
The geography of Antarctica is dominated by its south polar location and, thus, by ice. The Antarctic continent , located in the Earth 's southern hemisphere , is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle .
The continent of Antarctica is so cold that it has supported only 2 vascular plants for millions of years, and its flora presently consists of around 250 lichens, 100 mosses, 25–30 liverworts, and around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algal species, which live on the areas of exposed rock and soil around the shore of the continent.
The dry wind evaporates the snow rapidly and little melts into the soil. During the summer, this process can take only hours. Another important factor is a lack of precipitation. Precipitation averages around 100 millimetres (4 in) per year over a century of records, almost [3] [4] exclusively in the form of snow. This contributes to the low ...
Around 98% of continental Antarctica is covered in ice up to 4.7 kilometres (2.9 mi) thick. [1] Antarctica's icy deserts have extremely low temperatures, high solar radiation, and extreme dryness. [2] Any precipitation that does fall usually falls as snow, and is restricted to a band around 300 kilometres (186 mi) from the coast.