Difference between revisions of "Antarctica"

During the Nimrod Expedition led by [[Ernest Shackleton]] in 1907, parties led by Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the [[South Magnetic Pole]]. [[Douglas Mawson]], who assumed the leadership of the Magnetic Pole party on their perilous return, went on to lead several expeditions until retiring in 1931. In addition, Shackleton himself and three other members of his expedition made several firsts in December 1908 – February 1909: they were the first humans to traverse the [[Ross Ice Shelf]], the first to traverse the [[Transantarctic Mountains]] (via the [[Beardmore Glacier]]), and the first to set foot on the [[South Polar Plateau]]. An expedition led by Norwegian polar explorer [[Roald Amundsen]] from the ship ''Fram'' became the first to reach the geographic [[South Pole]] on 14 December 1911, using a route from the Bay of Whales and up the Axel Heiberg Glacier. One month later, the doomed Scott Expedition reached the pole.

[[Richard E. Byrd]] led several voyages to the Antarctic by plane in the 1930s and 1940s. He is credited with implementing mechanized land transport on the continent and conducting extensive geological and biological research. The first women to set foot on Antarctica did so in the 1930s with [[Caroline Mikkelsen]] landing on an island of Antarctica in 1935, and [[Ingrid Christensen]] stepping onto the mainland in 1937.

About 1,150 species of fungi have been recorded from Antarctica, of which about 750 are non-lichen-forming and 400 are lichen-forming. Some of these species are cryptoendoliths as a result of evolution under extreme conditions, and have significantly contributed to shaping the impressive rock formations of the McMurdo Dry Valleys and surrounding mountain ridges. The apparently simple morphology, scarcely differentiated structures, metabolic systems and enzymes still active at very low temperatures, and reduced life cycles shown by such fungi make them particularly suited to harsh environments such as the McMurdo Dry Valleys. In particular, their thick-walled and strongly melanised cells make them resistant to UV light. Those features can also be observed in algae and cyanobacteria, suggesting that these are adaptations to the conditions prevailing in Antarctica. This has led to speculation that, if life ever occurred on Mars, it might have looked similar to Antarctic fungi such as Cryomyces antarcticus, and Cryomyces minteri. Some of these fungi are also apparently endemic to Antarctica.