In 1900 Con Scott was selected to lead the British Antarctic Expedition on the ship Discovery. This expedition left England in August 1901 and charted some 1200 miles of Antarctican coastline as well as completing biological, meteorological and geographic study. A landing party attempted to explore the continent at that time but was forced to return due to the failing health of the party. Scott himself participated in the scientific operations not only by leading the ground expedition but also making attempts to man the weather balloon and performing scientific experiments. The crew busied themselves by keeping the vessel shipshape in Scott's absence and whiled away the days with scientific pursuits, writing letters or penning articles for the now famous shipboard newspaper the South Polar Times.
Upon his return to England in 1904 he was promoted to Captain and shortly afterwards was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. He was also awarded the Polar Medal for his participation in the 1902-04 expedition.
With hard fought backing from the public and government, he was able to mount another expedition, this time with the pole itself as the objective. This fateful expedition left England in June of 1910 and by November of 1911 Scott was gain trekking across the Antarctic ice. The weather was much worse than anticipated causing extensive delays and rationing problems, but finally a downsized team managed to reach the pole on January 17, 1912. The team was robbed of its prize when they discovered that they had been beaten to the pole by scarcely one month by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen had taken a shorter route and had relied heavily on dogs to perform most of the heavy pulling. Scott had to be content with merely taking geological samples.
The return trip to the supply ship was particularly arduous and entries made in Scott's journal (while trying to give the impression of good spirits and British stiff upper lippedness) tell a tale of beastly weather conditions and of the rapidly deteriorating health of the party. The weather delayed their arrival at the established supply dumps causing serious rationing, and the dumps were found to be less than fully stocked. Caught in a blizzard which lasted nine days, Scott and the remaining members of his party finally succumbed to starvation and cold a mere 11 miles from their next supply dump, One Ton Depot. Scott's journals record that he knew the end was near and the despair is echoed in his final entries, written March 29, 1912. Their remains were located November 12, 1912 and a cairn of rocks was laid at the site in honour of Scott and his party, great men and explorers.
ANTARCTICA is the highest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. All but 2% is ice and snow, and even that 2% is classified as barren rock. There is no arable land or forests. The coldest temperature ever observed was taken at the Vostok Station, where a reading of -88.3 Celsius was recorded. Antarctica is the fifth largest continent, at just over 14,245,000 square kilometres. Antarctica has many interesting mountain ranges, including the Sentinel range, which is home to the highest point in Antarctica, Vinson Massif at 16863 ft. Although there is over 11000 miles of coastline there are no permanent harbours due to the annual freezing of the oceans. Many of the coastal science stations have ship mooring facilities during parts of the year.
Antarctica is almost totally covered with ice. This ice has an average thickness of over 1 mile, and if it were to melt, the water contained in it would cause the world's oceans to rise by over 60 metres. Scientists believe that at one time Antarctica was a much warmer place and supported much life. Dinosaur remains have been discovered, and by studying the arrangement of the glacial till in glaciers, scientists can trace many stages of the evolution of the continent and of the Earth. Scientists have been able to draw many conclusions about when and how certain earthly events happened by studying the glaciers and Antarctican geology in general. Antarctica has geothermal activity occurring in it still. Mt. Erebus, the mountain which overlooks the McMurdo science station, is an active volcano--frequency seen belching steam.
Although Antarctica has no indigenous population, the transplanted scientist population can number 5000 or more. This figure is seasonal, and during the long Antarctic winter the population dwindles down to just over 1100. Of these, none can be considered permanent residents, although there are currently 42 stations operated year round. The largest of these is the American station McMurdo on the Ross Ice Shelf. McMurdo is the only settlement large enough to be called a town, but with over 100 buildings it has all the comforts of home for 150-4500 scientists, including TV telephones sewer etc. and airstrips.
Exploration of Antarctica dates back over 200 years, with Captain James Cook crossing the Antarctic Circle on January 16, 1773. Some of the outlying islands have had attempts at commercialization made, usually without success. In fact more often than not the introduction of humans and non indigenous species by humans has dramatically altered the ecosystems of these areas. Whaling and attempts at sheep raising have all but ruined some islands. Minerals have been found in Antarctica but are not commercially viable to mine. And, currently there is a ban on any mining in Antarctica. Antarctica is jointly administered under the auspices of the Antarctic Treaty, and some countries have territorial claims. Isolation makes Antarctica an important outdoor laboratory for many types of weather, ozone hole and pollution studies, truly a barometer for the rest of the world.
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