Antarctic Exploration

The British explorer Ernest Shackleton, leading his second Antarctic expedition (1914–16). His ship Endurance left South Georgia in December 1914 for the transantarctic crossing but was crushed by the ice. Shackleton and his crew eventually reached Elephant Island, from where he and five others set out in an open boat to get help. They finally landed in South Georgia in May 1916.

From the time of Ptolemy belief in a large southern continent with a temperate climate was widespread in western civilization. However, explorers did not reach the Southern Ocean for many centuries, and soon found that there was no sign of the legendary ‘Terra Australis Incognita’. However, they did discover the far smaller frozen continent of Antarctica.

Captain Cook The history of Antarctic exploration begins with Captain James Cook's voyage in the Resolution and Adventure of 1772–75. Previous navigators had sailed in the Southern Tropics without siting Terra Australis, but Cook set out to circumnavigate the world at a high southerly latitude. Although his latitude varied considerably, he was able to announce that if a southern continent existed, it had to be ice-bound and lie south of 60° S.

Reaching the Antarctic mainland Cook's discovery of the island of South Georgia brought many sealers and whalers to the South Atlantic over the following decades. They decimated the local wildlife, and began to venture further south in search of fresh stocks. These traders were probably the first to reach the outlying parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, but kept it a closely guarded secret.

In 1819–21 the Russian explorer Bellingshausen completed another Southern circumnavigation of the globe, with a route which filled in the gaps left by Cook's previous voyage. Bellingshausen sighted the Antarctic ice shelf, placed Peter I and Alexander Islands on the map, and extended earlier surveys of the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. It was only pure bad luck which prevented him from recognizing the Antarctic mainland. The treacherous weather of the Southern Ocean was far from ideal for exploration under sail – the winds which could have carried Bellingshausen within sight of the continent also brought with them poor weather conditions.

The first officially reported sighting of the Antarctic mainland was therefore claimed in 1820 by British trader Edward Bransfield (1795–1851) in his ship, the Williams. He was followed later in that year by Nathaniel Brown Palmer (1799–1877), of an American sealing expedition, who discovered the southern reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula. In 1823, the seal hunter James Weddell sailed down the side of the Antarctic Peninsula and into the Weddell Sea, while other sealers such as John Biscoe made further important discoveries while searching for seal colonies. Enderby land in Greater Antarctica is still named after the trading company which sponsored many of these expeditions.

National expeditions in the 19th century From the 1830s, a series of national expeditions vastly increased knowledge of the new continent. The French expedition of 1837–40 under Jules Dumont D'Urville was the first to approach Antarctica from the Pacific, discovering Terre Adélie, named after Dumont D'Urville's wife. The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42 consisted of five ships under the command of Charles Wilkes (1798–1877), whose leadership of the expedition was later called into question. Later expeditions found the US charts inaccurate, but the expedition did discover and map Wilkes Land.

The British expedition of 1839–43 was led by James Clark Ross, an experienced polar explorer and veteran of the Arctic. Sponsored by the British Royal Society and Admiralty, Ross, in HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, discovered and explored Victoria Land. He also discovered the mountains named after his two ships, and the vast expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf.

In 1875 the Challenger, commanded by George Strong Nares became the first steamer to cross the Antarctic Circle, and this expedition made many contributions to biological and physical oceanography. this was followed in the 1890s by a Scottish expedition led by C A Larsen, which sailed down the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, completing its mapping.

The privately funded Belgian expedition of 1897–99 under Adrien de Gerlache de Goméry (1866–1934) in the Belgica surveyed the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, before becoming trapped in pack ice in the Bellingshausen Sea. The Belgica's crew, which unwillingly became the first people to winter south of the Antarctic Circle, included Roald Amundsen. The first planned wintering took place on the British Southern Cross expedition of 1898–1900 under the Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink (1864–1934).

Early 20th century Antarctic exploration The turn of the century was marked by five important national expeditions: the German expedition of 1901–03 under Professor Erich von Drygalski (1865–1949); the Swedish South Polar Expedition of 1901–04 under Otto Nordenskjöld (1869–1928); the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902–04 under William S Bruce; the French Antarctic Expedition of 1903–05 under Jean Charcot; and Robert F Scott's Discovery expedition of 1901–04. Scott led the first parties to penetrate any significant distance into the interior of Antarctica.

Ernest Shackleton, a member of Scott's team, went on to lead the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907–09, discovering the Beardmore Glacier, which provided a route from the Ross Ice Shelf to the uplands of the plateau around the South Pole. Shackleton sledged to within 160 km/100 mi) of the South Pole before turning back, while another team reached the South Magnetic Pole for the first time.

Reaching the Pole Shackleton's discovery of the Beardmore Glacier opened up the route to the South Pole, and two expeditions immediately set out to claim it. Robert Scott's Terra Nova crew arrived on the Ross Ice Shelf in early 1911, intending to extend Shackleton's route to the pole itself, while the Norwegian expedition of Roald Amundsen planned to take a shorter, but unexplored, path.

Amundsen left his base on 9 October 1911. He had laid down a series of supply depots stretching a considerable way to the pole, and, after a relatively uneventful journey, he and his party of five reached the pole on 14 December. Scott's party did not leave until 1 November, and had to fight through difficult conditions to the pole. The final assault team, also of five men, arrived at the pole on 17 January 1911, to find Amundsen's flag already there. The return journey took place in appalling conditions, and all five died.

Crossing the continent Two other major expeditions rank alongside the polar assaults as highlights of the ‘heroic age’ of Antarctic exploration. Douglas Mawson led the Australasian expedition of 1911–14, exploring the coast of Wilkes Land, and barely escaping with his life.

Ernest Shackleton's expedition of 1914–16 intended to cross the Antarctic for the first time. However, the expedition's ship, Endurance, was crushed in the pack ice, and the crew were forced to overwinter on an ice floe. Finally, they were able to launch their smaller boats, reaching Elephant Island in April 1916. From there, Shackleton and five companions crossed 1280 km (800 miles) of sea to South Georgia, and commandeered a whaling ship in the first of several rescue attempts. Finally, Shackleton rescued his crew in a Chilean tug, before returning to Antarctica in the support vessel Aurora to retrieve ten of his men who had been stranded on Ross Island.

Aerial exploration From the 1920s, aircraft were used to extend the scope of expeditions to the Antarctic. Douglas Mawson's British, Australian, and New Zealand expedition of 1929–31 used a small seaplane to take off and land in the midst of the pack ice and survey the Antarctic interior. Three US aerial expeditions led by Richard Byrd between 1928 and 1941 concentrated exploration in the Pacific sector of Antarctica, and Byrd made the first flight over the South Pole in 1929. Another American, Lincoln Ellsworth (1880–1951), made the first trans-Antarctic flight in 1935.

Research after World War II The period directly after World War II saw a series of expeditions establishing permanent or semipermanent research stations in Antarctica. These were often partly political in nature, enabling many countries to stake claims to Antarctic territory, including Australia, the USA, Britain, Argentina, and France. However, they have also carried out important scientific work.

In 1949–52, a joint Norwegian, British, and Swedish expedition to Antarctica was led by the Norwegian John Giaever. This international cooperation paved the way for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957–58, a turning-point in Antarctic exploration. Twelve nations set up a network of scientific stations on the continent and islands. The IGY was considered so successful than an international Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959, ensuring the peaceful scientific exploration and preservation of Antarctica.

An important element of the IGY was the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Under the leadership of Vivian Fuchs, the team, including the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary, completed the first overland crossing of the continent between November 1957 and March 1958).

Under the Antarctic Treaty, scientific exploration of Antarctica has increased rapidly, with expeditions from Italy, Uruguay, Poland, Germany, India, and China in the 1970s and 1980s. Probably the most notable private expedition was Ranulph Fiennes's Transglobe project of 1981–2, which succeeded in circumnavigating the world via both poles.

One nagging concern, however, has been the threat of commercial exploitation of the continent for its mineral resources, and a new agreement in 1991, signed by many of the countries with Antarctic interests, hopefully assures that Antarctica will be preserved as a World Park.