Antarctica
Antarctica is the southermost continent of Earth, located at the southern pole.
Because of its current position it is mostly covered by thick glaciers which
grow by continuous snow falls.
All plains are covered by several kilometers of ice, only a few mountain ridges
are higher than the ice and form solid ground.
The continent, like all continents 200 million years ago a part of the super
continent Pangaea, was transported to this place by plate tectonics.
It does not stand still, but continually moves toward Australia, and so it
leaves its icey place continually and might reach a temperate zone in 40 or 50
million years.
This exceptional continent is of great geologic importance.
Obviously the current location is outstanding and allows important scientific
research.
For instance the ice cover, layer above layer, is a record of the climate of the
last millions of years.
The ice is ideal to find rock meteorites, as they are lying on top of the ice.
There are no other rocks on the ice and so it is easy to find them.
Antarctica it was formed in other climates, it has the same rocks as its former
neighbours.
This inludes important ore and oil deposits, gemstones and fossils.
To protect the continent, it was declared an international protection zone,
which means it does not belong to any country and nobody is allowed to start
mining operations.
At the moment this operations would probably be too difficult to be
remunerating, but this might change in the future.
Mining operations would definitely destroy the fragile eco system and also
contaminate the the ice diminishing its scientific value.
As Antarctica has the same geology as all other continents, it also has karst.
There are limestnes, karstified with caves inside.
There are volcanoes with lava tubes.
The general problem is to get there and to find them.
Once found they would be of extraordinary scientific value.
The most easily accessible caves on Antarctica are the Glacier caves.
Formed by ice movements, they change rapidly and are rather dangerous.
On the other hand they are important access ways into the glacier to older
layers of ice.
The first caver reaching Antarctica was
Emil Racovita,
who arrived in the Peninsula in January 1898 with the Belgica expedition.
Also the Scott expedition of 1911 took a photo of an
ice cave entrance.
But the first authentic cave exploration took place during the
Haroun Tazieff
expedition to Mount Erebus in 1977.
Some fumarole caves were explored in the volcano close to the US Mac Murdo base.
In 1980s glaciologists from East Germany explored some classical ice caves,
created by water flow.
They are outflow conduits draining internal glacier waters.
This was in Schirmacher Oasis, a dry valley near the Russian base
Novolazarevskaya in Queen Maud Land.
In 1985 Italian glaciologists explored fumarole caves on Mt Melbourne.
However, all those explorations were not speleologic exploration, and so the
explorations were not appropriately documented.
There are not even tour reports.
The first expedition especially devoted to caving in Antarctica was in March
2000 on the 43rd Russian Antarctica Expedition.
A team of the Italian association La Venta and a Spanish group from Etsim were
invited to explore some glacier caves in the Collins Glacier, King George
Island, South Shetlands.
The few exploration ever carried out on ice caves (moulins) at Antarctica
resulted in important scientific data.
Sights of Antarctica
Antarctica is recently becoming a tourist destination.
People are travelling south from Australia or Fireland on special ships.
Those trips are still expensive and they are dedicated to the landscape and the
fauna of the continent.
Caving or spelunking trips are still not existant, although the participants
might visit the entrance of a glacier cave.
So we have nothing to list at the moment.
Additional Information about Antarctica
