In this article, we will look at some cool unknown & interesting facts about the super cool continent Antarctica. This southernmost part of the Earth has many mysteries than just being a beautiful snowy surface.
We know Antarctica is one of the coolest, windiest, and driest places on the surface of Earth. Antarctica contains the geographical south pole.
It extends to 14,200,000 square kilometers and is the fifth-largest continent, about twice the size of Australia.
It is also the least populated continent on the Earth’s surface, with nearly 5000 people in summer and just 1000 people in winter visiting the place with no indigenous population.
Let us see some unknown cool interesting facts about Antarctica.
Fact 1: The Dry Valley
Antarctica has the driest place on Earth, which is famously known as “The Dry Valley.” That portion of the continent has low humidity and moisture, due to which neither the snow nor the ice accumulates on the surface, which leaves the valley covered with dust or soil.
Fact 2: It is a desert
Antarctica is a desert that is covered in ice sheets of freshwater. Yes, most of us think of the desert as the presence of sand everywhere and sizzling high temperatures.
However, a desert is any place that receives extraordinarily little annual precipitation as rain, snow, mist, or fog.
It took Antarctica 45 million years to grow to a certain thickness of ice because it receives very little rainfall. Additionally, it is also the windiest place on the earth which experiences a wind speed of 200 miles per hour.
Fact 3: Six months of daylight, six months of darkness
Antarctica does not have a time zone. The continent experiences six months of constant sunlight in summer and six months of darkness in winter because of the earth’s tilt characteristic.
The sun does not rise in Antarctica from the vernal equinox (around March 20) to the autumnal equinox (around September 22).
This makes it difficult to divide the days into 24-hour time duration normally, and marking the time into day and night is tough.
Fact 4: Temperature is rising
Antarctica’s peninsula is warming more rapidly than any other region on the Earth’s surface.
It has been recorded that the average temperature in Antarctica has increased more than 3 degrees Celsius over the last 50 years, which is five times the average increase on Earth’s surface.
Scientists even claim that if the Antarctica ice sheet melts at the same speed, it will increase global sea levels by 16 feet and more.
Fact 5: Largest ice shelf
Antarctica contains about 90% of the planet’s freshwater. The Antarctic ice sheet is the single biggest mass of ice sheet globally, which also grows four times thick depending upon the season.
The Ross Ice Shelf is the most enormous ice shelf ever discovered on the Earth’s surface. It is usually a floating tongue of 5,10,000 square kilometers of ice that extends off the continent’s main landmass.
Fact 6: The Antarctica Treaty
The Antarctica Treaty is different from the treaties of the rest of the countries. When humans first discovered Antarctica in 1820, many countries claimed the continent, leading to a significant disturbance between the countries and their relations.
In December 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctica Treaty and agreed to a peaceful resolution. Since then, 41 countries have signed the treaty for making decisions and rules about human intervention in the region to preserve the continent.
Currently, the Antarctica treaty system has put strict guidelines for commercial fishing, sealing, and a complete ban on mining and mineral exploration into its landmass.
Fact 7: The large mountain and the hidden lake
Antarctica holds one of the world’s most extensive mountain ranges covered in ice. The “Gamburtsev mountain” is stretched approximately in more than 1200 kilometers. It has its highest peak at around 2,800 meters or about one-third the size of the earth’s tallest mountain “Mount Everest.”
Another surprising geographical feature Antarctica holds is “Lake Vostok,” hidden under the ice sheet and buried under 4 kilometers of frozen freshwater.
The lake is the size of Lake Ontario and contains more than 200 different living species beneath the ice surface. Additionally, the Deep Lake in Antarctica is so salty that it cannot freeze, even if the temperature falls as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius.
Fact 8: The volcanoes
Antarctica has several active volcanoes. Mount Erebus’s first ascent was made by the Australian scientists Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson in 1908. It is also known as “Lava Lake.”It has liquid magma in it despite the overall freezing surrounding condition.
The second active volcano is situated in the South Shetland Islands, once the home of a thriving whaling station and later a scientific station; it is now abandoned after the most recent eruption in 1969.
Fact 9: New rift discovered in 2010
Antarctica has a massive rift even greater than the Grand Canyon. The unnamed canyon was discovered in the 2010 expedition. It is extended up to approximately 100 kilometers, more than 9 kilometers wide, and has a depth of 16 kilometers.
Scientists believe it could be even larger than the records have shown, and more exploration is taking place in these areas.
Fact 10: Birth in Antarctica
The first person born in Antarctica was Emile Marco Palma, born in January 1979. After that, only ten other people have been born on the continent in human history. Another interesting fact about Antarctica is that it is situated in the southernmost part of the earth, so everything is north in the Antarctica region and not south.
Alright, so we saw some cool facts about the coolest region on earth, Antarctica or the South Pole region. I hope you enjoyed reading them. Would you like to go to Antarctica someday? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Author Profile
- Sofia Ali is an analyst by profession who has a love for creativity and enjoys writing on different topics such as engineering, science, history, self-help, healthcare, and much more. Believes strongly in the law of attraction and wants to create a difference in this world with her thoughts.
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