Talk:Antarctica/Archive 2

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Archives
March 2003 to December 2005 January 2005 to June 2006

A question about Antarctic land

===>Always wondered this... How much of Antarctica's surface actually contains land underneath? That is to say, what percentage of it is not simply an ice shelf? Justin (koavf) 00:05, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

The vast majority of Antarctica contains land beneath the ice, and there are even some areas McMurdo Dry Valleys with exposed land. The major ice shelves are Ross Ice Shelf, and Ronne Ice Shelf, with numerous smaller ice shelves flanking the coasts. A specific percentage? I don't know, but in 2001, the National Geographic produced the best map of Antarctica (satellite image-based) that I know of, in conjunction with the Byrd Polar Research Center [1]. Sorry, it's a commercial link for buying the map, but you can view it/zoom in by clicking on "More Views". It shows where these ice shelves are and how large, in relation to the continent. -Aude (talk | contribs) 00:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

===>Thanks for the speedy response. Justin (koavf) 01:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

To expand on that a bit... some of the Antarctic land underneath the ice is actually below sea level. See http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/aedc/bedmap/examples/bed10.gif and http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/aedc/bedmap/. William M. Connolley 11:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC).

Todo

I've added a todo table at the top of this page. Feel free to add or remove things. Gflores ^Talk 01:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

You did such a good job, I'm not sure I can add anything! Maurreen 03:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Appearance

Does the layout look bad for anyone else? Do you see trapped white space? Maurreen 03:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about the order of the sections or the placement of images and such? Also, what do you mean by "trapped white space"? Gflores ^Talk 03:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I mean, on my screen, there are sections where the images or text trap a blank area -- an empty chunk of white space. That's the only problem I see, but it might be my browser. Maurreen 04:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Couple questions

Under economy:

"The environmental protection act that was added to the Antarctic Treaty prevents such struggle for resources. In 1998, a compromise agreement was reached to add a 50-year ban on mining until the year 2048, further preventing any economic system from taking place. The primary agricultural activity is the capture and offshore trading of fish."

I made "Environmental" lowercase to match "protection act", but I'm not sure whether they should be capitalized.
Instead of "...further preventing any economic system from taking place," would it be better to say something like "...further preventing limiting economic development and exploitation"?

Maurreen 04:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for proofreading. Gflores ^Talk 07:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: The picture labeled "Patagonian toothfish" is actually Antartic cod. I can't confirm this from personal education, but look at the file names and the article for Patagonian toothfish. --Mr Minchin 22:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

layout

Does anyone else have a weird layout with the images, specifically in the flora/fauna section. image, that's how it looks to me. Of course, it could be just my resolution. Gflores ^Talk 19:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The layout looks good to me. Maurreen 19:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Antarctica in fiction/popular culture

I think that this article needs such a section to be truly comprehensive.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 19:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Geographical scope of Antarctica

This article covers the Antarctic Continent alone, while in the English language 'Antarctica' refers both to the mainland and the wider geographical region comprising also the islands and waters situated south of the Antarctic Convergence. (See Livingston Island for further details.) So the article should probably cover the rest of Antarctica as well. Apcbg 22:20, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Currency

Does Antarctica have a Currency? If so, is it worth mentioning in the 'Economy' section? Liam Plested 01:47, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

No. Each base may or may not use its national currency William M. Connolley 14:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a currency called Antarctican dollar, but is created by a private company. I don't think it's used in Antarctica. Just a fun thing for bill collectors. --Apoc2400 06:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Population

I removed, and Gflores reverted back in, the stuff about who-was-born-first. I argue that:

this is all tedious politics
its out of place: there is an article about demographics; if it belongs anywhere, its there

William M. Connolley 14:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting fact as it's the only continent in which we know who was the first person born there. It's not controversial or untasteful as you say. However, I do see it being a little long now, so maybe a good compromise is to still mention it but shorten it, so there isn't two whole paragraphs on 2 births. What do you think? Gflores ^Talk 18:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Its all wrapped up in politics. The baby was imported to be born there for (completely pointless) policitcal ends; hence the "distasteful" bit (and the recent additions don't help...). I would rather it were out. But, AFAIK its a true factoid. Are we also going to include the first person to die there? :-) William M. Connolley 19:23, 6 March 2006 (UTC).

The paragraph on the (historical) population of South Georgia is hardly politics in the sense you mean; the sealers and whalers were sent by no government but rather pursued their normal industry. Some of them used to live there for several decades (albeit none for more than one generation), some enjoyed normal family life with marriages, divorces, and children born and raised. Incidentally, I have met one such born and bred native South Georgian: Mrs. Jan Cheek of Stanley, until recently a Falkland Islands Councillor. As for the first persons to die in Antarctica, the earliest recorded grave is that of the sealer Frank Gabriel who died on 14 October 1820 on South Georgia, while the first people known to have died in Antarctica were most probably the 644 Spanish seamen and soldiers onboard the San Telmo believed wrecked off Livingston Island in September 1819. (The latter were sent by their government indeed, even if to fight colonial rebels in the Viceroyalty of Peru rather than conquer Antarctica.) Apcbg 22:36, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The Russian priest, Father Gerogy, has a permanent home near his church, lives on the continent year-round, and has been stationed to the continent on an indefinite, and decidedly long-term basis. If that doesn't make him a permanent resident of the continent, how does one define permanent population in a meaningful way. The population should be listed as one permanent. User:suncrush

Flag of Antarctica?

Do correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Antarctica has an official flag, the one with the UN blue shown is the proposed one. Should we include the flag here, or perhaps add a note to the side of the side noting it as only a proposition? --Shibo77 14:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Flat earth viewpoint

I only thought of this while admonishing another user for doing something similar, but is it notable for this article that some Flat Earthers do not believe that Antartica exists. Perhaps a note in the geography section? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 01:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Not a bad idea. Gflor e s^Talk 02:01, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? According to the Flat Earth article, the non-existence of Antarctica and/or the antipodes may have been a belief of some in the middle ages, although that claim is disputed. But in modern times there is no evidence anyone holds the belief that Antarctica doesn't exist. According to that article, there probably aren't even any Flat Earthers any more, since their association's founder died in 2001 they have not been around. Derek Balsam 03:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Image in lead

Is it just me or does anyone else think the image in the lead section throws off the layout and makes it seem jumbled? It's been added and removed before, so I'd just like some input from other users with different monitor resolutions. Gflor e s^Talk 02:01, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

"Geology of present-day Antarctica"

Antarctica without its ice-shield.

The whole section titled "Geology of present-day Antarctica" is fantastically bad. You couldn't possibly remove the icesheet fast enough to not add at least 100m of elevation from isostatic rebound, and once it comes to equilibrium you'd get over a km of uplift in some places. All of the attractive "fjords" and "basins" in East Antarctica would be above sea level even after accounting for ~70m of sea level rise. Nor would West Antarctica be nearly as fragmented as it rendered there. I realize the images says it ignores uplift, but it is still misleading because people are not given the right impression that after uplift East Antarctica would better resemble Australia than some criss-crossed mess of seas. Dragons flight 04:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll support you if you correct it. --Mboverload 04:58, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

For the moment, I've killed the worst paragraph and edited the figure caption. I may look at it again later. Dragons flight 08:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems that I have contributed the worst paragraph of a fantastically bad section. Sorry for doing that. For those who still like the paragraph and don't want to dig into the history, here it is:

Without the ice-shield, the continent's shape would look fully different from how it is presented on common maps. West Antarctica would resolve into three major parts: the Antarctic peninsula, Marie Byrd Land, and Vinson massif. East Antarctica would consist in a landmass with huge bays (e.g. Aurora Subglacial Basin and Wilkes Subglacial Basin) and fjords (e.g. at the location of Amery Glacier and around the South pole). The East Antarctic landmass would be littered with lakes and endorheic seas, parts of their grounds being far lower than sea level. East Antarctica would look somewhat like Canada or Finland nowadays.

Neither the graph, nor the text suggest that removing the icesheet takes place, should be done, or could be done in a short period of time. Both graph and text simply show the bedrock as it is in fact now, according to the most recent meta-studies. It's a fact, and, to my mind, it's pretty interesting.

By the way, post-glacial rebound should not been overestimated; it is a slow process. In Northern Europe and Canada it was at most 0.075 m/yr, but most of the time it was only 0.025 m/yr. Of course, the ice-shield did not melt away instantly, so the rate would have been higher under such hypothetical conditions, but we are not talking about 100 m/yr.

The two phenomena sea level rise and uplift compete each other. Sea level rise (estimates are between 59 and 80 m) would happen instantly, so that the bassins, for a few months or years, would probably be even larger than displayed on the graph.

The lakes and endorheic seas would probably not be effected for a few thousand years until rivers would create valleys to drain them. So the Canada-like look would last for a pretty long time, independently of sea level rise and uplift.

So, after all, aren't there good reasons why to insert the killed paragraph again?

--Panda17 13:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Panda, you are mistaken on several issues. First, the uplift during unloading is a factor of several higher than post-glacial rebound. Secondly, the Laurentide ice sheet (North America) can conservatively be said to be unloading for at least 3 kyr (probably closer to 10 kyr). For reasonable rheologies, 3 kyr is long enough that ~50% of the ultimate total rebound occurs during the unloading process. For a site under several kilometers of ice, that's several hundred meters before the ice is totally removed. Unless you can imagine some way to magic away to ice a lot faster, there is no way that most of those "bays" would ever be below sea level by the time the ice has melted regardless of sea level rise. Dragons flight 15:41, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

;-) And I'm not mistaken on those issues not mentionned in the above reply...? Whatever - as to myself, I'll stop the thread here. If the majority of readers of this section consider the above worst paragraph useful, put it back into the article, maybe with some modifications. Otherwise, somebody should remove the map as well, to be consistent. For those still interested in Antarctic rock surface: see the map at [2] or the entire site at [3] by the British Antarctic Survey. The maps are based on the same data as the map presented here, with a precise description of the data collection/consolidation process. However, the maps don't use 0 elevation as a reference, and they don't fill hollows with lakes - which may make interpretation more difficult to non-academic readers, but the information is the same. A less sophisticated rock surface map is also published on the Antarctica Travel Map by International Travel Maps, Vancouver.--Panda17 03:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Early 1513 AD Map

It was about to remove this section and its link in 'See also'. It does however appear that there is some notability to this claim. The map is called the Piri Reis map and the author of a book on the subject was Charles Hapgood. As the map article says: "Many scholars, however, dispute this conclusion, citing the fact that for centuries cartographers had been depicting a southern landmass on global maps based on the theoretical assumption that one must exist." If anything, this section could be subsumed into the Exploration section, but it doesn't deserve a section of its own (and not where it has been placed and formatted). --BillC 07:52, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Did it myself, and someone else removed the inappropriate Amazon link. --BillC 09:32, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Is the South Pole really on land?

According to this image: [4], if we were to remove all the ice from Antarctica, the South Pole would be on a small isle (islet?) in one of the major bays in Antarctica's main "continent", or possibly between Antarctica's two major "continents". So it is really on land, in contrast to the North Pole, which floats above the sea. Is this true? JIP | Talk 09:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Probably it would be a part of the continent as the continent would rise, if that was to happen. One estimate is, that f.e. during the last ice age Nordic countries would have been ~50 m deeper compared to the sea level.

Presently it is solid all the way from ice surface to bedrock, which is plenty to say it is on land, and if you removed the ice there would be enough uplift that it would still be above sea level (see the topic 2 above this). Dragons flight 03:26, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

No of countries with claims

3rd para. "seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, India, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom) maintain territorial claims." Should it say 8, or should one of these not be in the list? Nurg 09:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone just added India a few minutes ago. It was reverted because no claims were cited, so 7 is most likely correct. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

All of the measurements seem to be given in Metric, alienating Americans. This should be remedied. R'son-W 10:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Since Antartica is full of scientists, I would have thought metric would be common usage? I could be wrong. Maeve 10:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

If it were the other way around, I guess you'd be as happy as lark with that, right? JIP | Talk 11:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

You don't mean WP:NPOV. At the very most, you're raising an issue over globalization. And, as others have pointed out, metric measurements are entirely appropriate for this article. --BillC 12:44, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Although I am american and can't relate metric measurements well I fully support the use of the metric system on an article such as this. The scientific community uses the metric system, so a scientific article should use them, also.--Mboverload 04:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm Anmerican too, and did what I thought was the 'wiki' thing - I added the Good Old American Measurements (Inside Parenthesis). It becomes a habit..- Only time I get testy about it is when they try to put the Metric first on American Stuff... Bo 17:33, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Probably not really NPOV, but hardly worthly of a point all on it's own: The image in the Politics section is captioned "Logistics support by the Navy". Shouldn't the nationality of the navy in question be specified? Being a Brit, I assume it's the RN (recognising this bias), but my ship recognition skills just aren't up to the job! Great article BTW, congrats to all involved. M1rtyn 08:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As a matter of fact that Antarctic supply ship is the Vanguardia, Uruguayan Navy. Apcbg 09:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent news

Some of the recent news needs to be incorporated into the article.

-71.96.234.140 05:08, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Meteor crater

See "Big crater seen beneath ice sheet", BBC News.

What appears to be a 480km-wide (300 miles) crater has been detected under the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The scientists behind the discovery say it could have been made by a massive meteorite strike 250 million years ago. If the crater really was formed at the time von Frese and colleagues believe, it will raise interest as a possible cause of the "great dying" - the biggest of all the Earth's mass extinctions when 95% of all marine life and 70% of all land species disappeared.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by CatherineMunro (talk • contribs).

"Highest"

This was a WP:FAR concern. Can we source that? Marskell 21:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The whole thing is covered with a ~3 km ice sheet. Just look at topo map. [5] The Himalayas and isolated peaks in other places are higher, but on a continental scale there is nothing even competing with the average height of Antarctica. Dragons flight 21:32, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Great. As WP:V (more or less) says: the obvious should be sourced too. ~~So throw a topo map down here maybe.~~ Marskell 21:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I threw the ref in quickly. Marskell 21:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

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