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Exploring the 7th Continent (360° VR Channel)
Travel Destinations in Antarctica (BBC News)
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Polar Regions Arctic, Antarctica
Resources
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General
Portal
Antarctica (Infoplease), Antarctica Portal (Wikipedia), Antarctica (DMOZ Tools)
Dictionary
Antarctica : continent around the South Pole; a plateau covered by a great ice cap and mountain peaks area about 5,500,000 square miles (14,300,000 square kilometers) — Webster
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Roget’s II (Thesaurus.com), Merriam-Webster Thesaurus, Visuwords
Encyclopedia
Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres (5,400,000 square miles), it is the fifth-largest continent. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km (1.2 mi; 6,200 ft) in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F), though the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. — Wikipedia
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History
Although myths and speculation about a Terra Australis (“Southern Land”) date back to antiquity, the first confirmed sighting of the continent is commonly accepted to have occurred in 1820 by the Russian expedition of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The continent, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of resources, and isolation. — Wikipedia
History of Antarctica (Wikipedia)
Notebook from Scott of the Antarctic’s ill-fated expedition discovered 100 years later frozen in ice (ABC News)
Century-Old Notebook From Antarctic Expedition Found (Megan Gannon, Discovery, Live Science)
Library
WorldCat, Library of Congress, UPenn Online Books, Open Library
Participation
Education
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OER Commons: Open Educational Resources>
Community
News
The Antarctic Sun (The US Antarctic Program)
NPR, Reuters
Book
Government
US Office of Polar Programs (NSF)
Document
More…
Antarctic Sun - Science News Feed Science news items and articles displayed on the Antarctic Sun web site.
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New Ocean Floats Deepen a Carbon-Cycle Mystery
on November 20, 2018 at 4:29 pm
A new network of automated instruments throughout the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, is dramatically changing how scientists view the planet's least understood ocean. […]
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Researchers Release the Highest Resolution...
on October 17, 2018 at 5:03 pm
Researchers at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Polar Geospatial Center in September released the biggest and most detailed map of Antarctica ever produced. […]
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An Ecosystem Grows in Antarctica
on August 29, 2018 at 4:25 pm
Antarctica's native microorganisms are a hearty bunch, able to eke out a living on the planet's coldest, highest, driest, windiest and emptiest continent. But the region wasn't always quite as hospitable as it is today. […]
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Buried Treasure
on July 26, 2018 at 8:20 am
A team of researchers has brought home samples of some of the oldest ice ever discovered, more than twice as old as most previous samples. In the remote Ong Valley, the team drilled into a bed of ice - that first fell as snow two million years ago, or more. […]
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Neutrinos Point The Way To Cosmic Rays
on July 12, 2018 at 9:01 am
Using data gathered by the National Science Foundation- (NSF) funded IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, scientists have for the first time identified a super massive black hole as the source of some of the highest energy cosmic rays. […]