how did Antarctica become an isolated continent?
Answers
Explanation:
✍✍ The frozen continent is expected to remain an expensive,
specialized niche destination offered by a limited number
of experienced operators.
By Zelfa Silva
For the Buenos Aires Herald
Antarctica, the world’s fifth largest continent, surrounded by the Southern Ocean, is the world’s most isolated place, where vast mountain ranges and the enormous emptiness of the polar ice cap leave you feeling very small in the immensity of creation. Some say its gigantic icebergs and its unique ice shelves, which double its 14.2 million square km area in the winter, make it the most beautiful spot on earth.
Apart from the scientific bases run by a handful of countries, the only other signs of human presence in Antarctica are the frozen huts of unknown whalers and famous explorers like Shackleton, Amundsen, Scott, Nordenskjöld and Larsen who answered the challenge of its emptiness in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Antarctica is a continent of extremes. It is the coldest: a temperature of -89ºC was recorded in 1983 at Russia’s Vostock base. It is also the windiest, with winds of up to 320 km/h, the driest, with zero humidity, and the highest, with an average elevation of 2.2 km.
The thickness of its ice sheet is 2.7 km on average, and as much as 4 km in some places.
The international treaty that governs Antarctica states that it belongs to no person or country, and that its minerals, animals and plants must be left put. It is a free, demilitarized land of magnificent beauty that is dedicated to scientific research and international cooperation for peace.
The first tourists to set foot there flew in from Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1957 aboard a PanAm flight that landed briefly at McMurdo Sound.
But the real pioneer of Antarctic tourism was Lars-Eric Lindblad, who in 1966 began offering wealthy passengers unusual cruises to the frozen continent with professors on board lecturing on the continent’s history, geology, glaciers and wildlife.
By sea and land
The most common way of getting to Antaractica is by ship during the November-March southern hemisphere warm season. Most cruises leave from Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, and visit the Antarctic Peninsula only.
During the 1999/2000 season, 143 Antarctic cruises run by eight operators departed from the port of Ushuaia. IAATO put the number of tourists transported at 15,000 — a new record.
The steady increase in Antarctic tourism of the past years is expected to continue as the “baby boom” generation retires with plenty of money to enjoy special destinations that few people manage to experience.
North Americans, Canadians and Australians are the best candidates for an Antarctic adventure. Then come the Germans, the English, other Europeans, the Japanese and the rest of the world. South Americans still comprise only a tiny percentage of total visitors.
Adventure Network International (ANI) is the only company that takes adventurous, land-based expeditions to the interior of Antarctica. They fly a Lockheed L-382 G Hercules and two DHC-6 Twin Otters out of Punta Arenas, Chile to their Patriot Hills base camp in the Ellsworth Mountains.
Since 1985 they have taken over 350 mountaineers up the 4,897-metre-high Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain, among other peaks.
ANI also offers particularly well-heeled clients flights aboard Twin Otters from the Patriot Hills base camp to the South Pole. The flights depend entirely on weather conditions, meaning that passengers often have to wait at the base camp for hours or days until the weather over the Pole clears and the pilot can fly safely.
On February 5, 2001, 140 long-distance runners will run on King George Island off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
This unusual event, organized by Marathon Tours & Travel and tour operator Marine Expeditions, will take the runners past the scientific research bases of Uruguay, Chile, China and Russia, whose members will provide water, medical assistance and supportive cheers.
Most Antarctic tourism is conducted by members of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO), founded in 1991. Dedicated to safe and environmentally responsible private sector travel, the Association was instrumental in developing Recommendation XVII-1 of the Antarctic Treaty system.
Thanks to this initiative, it is forbidden to touch, handle or disturb wildlife in Antarctica.
IAATO provides a forum in which Antarctic tour operators can get together to develop standards and practices that will better protect the Antarctic environment.
According to IAATO records of tour itineraries and site visits, 150 Antarctic sites including 20 research stations have been visited by tourists since 1989.
Most visits have centred on 50 sites that receive more than 100 visitors per season. ✍✍