Is the Exploration of the Antarctic Going to End?

A hundred years ago or so, a whaling ship known as the Antarctic came to a halt off the volcanic, wind-battered coast and sent one of their longboats through the through the rough ocean of the Ross Sea to reach the shore. On January 24, 1895, in their quest to travel to unknown seas with the purpose of slaughtering whales, a landing group, led by Captain Leonard Kristensen, were the first people to step foot on the Antarctic continent. To get a closer look on antarctica cruises visit this site.

The baptism of Antarctica was bathed in blood. While seals were being slaughtered for their fur, whales and penguins were being killed for their oil which was then used to grease the machinery developed during the Industrial Revolution. A harrowing process took place on Macquarie Island where hundreds of thousands of helpless penguins were herded into boiling cauldrons of oil in order to render the sought-after oil of these peaceful animals.

Finally, after exploiting the Frozen Continent more than 100 years, it seems humans are willing to let go of the easy money and fast kill opportunities to allow Antarctica to be a place of preserving both science and nature for the future. Recently, there have even been discussions about starting a world park in this region. Within Antarctica, scientists are more able to explore certain environmental factors such as the Greenhouse Effect and the depletion of our ozone layer. Considering how brief a time we have inhabited our planet, the discoveries that we have made in Antarctica since its discover are truly remarkable. There were only parts of the coastline, the islands, and several paths to the South Pole investigated until the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958.

The history of man’s presence in Antarctica has been an indistinct collection of stories that portray nationalism, idealism, and unabated slaughter with far too little scientific undertaking involved. Whaling around Antarctica occurred with more intensity during World War I, because the oil from them was refined into glycerin used in artillery shells. Whale oil continued to be a commodity after World War II, as the Soviet Union and the United States began to require more of the substance for use as a jet engine lubricant. The term “Terra Incognita” was used until the IGY to label this continent. This term was first used by medieval mapmakers. Visit this site for further information on antarctica cruise prices.

The birth of the first individual in Antarctica was a witness to dutiful conceit. That person has not yet reached adulthood. The mother of Emilio Marcus Palmer was flown to Antarctica to give birth to him in 1978 simply for the purpose of claiming part of Antarctic territory in the name of Argentina.

This was similar to America claiming dominance 9 years earlier when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon and put the American flag on the moon. A similar exploit took place in 1911 when Roald Amundsen raced to be the first to the South Pole to show nobility to Norway’s King Haakon VII. The same sort of trip was done for the glory of Great Britain’s empire by Robert F. Scott and team, however they also gathered up fossils and rock samples and hauled them back on their sledges.

After discovering that despite all their hard work, Amundsen had beaten them to the Pole by an entire month, Scott’s party perished in Antarctica due to a combination of bad luck, the pain of hauling massive amounts of rock, and poor diet.  This made them the first team of martyrs for the cause of science in Antarctica. America staked their claim to the South Pole when Richard Byrd took a flight over it in 1929 using a Ford Trimotor. In 1821, the soviets utilized Russian Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen’s voyage passed Antarctica in 1821 to justify their interests in the continent.