Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
As such, it also means that fishing stocks and sea birds tend to be concentrated around the
Antarctic Convergence, leading to greater interest in managing these areas of the South-
ern Ocean.
Unlike the zonal qualities of the Antarctic Convergence, the Southern Ocean is often
defined as being south of 60°S latitude, and thus encircling the continent. There is a dis-
agreement, however. Does the Southern Ocean possess a more northerly boundary? While
Captain James Cook used the term to describe the vast seas of 50°S, the International Hy-
drographic Organization cautiously established the boundary at 60°S in 2000. For Aus-
tralians and New Zealanders, however, the water off the cities of Adelaide and Invercar-
gill are the start of the Southern Ocean, thus consolidating their sense of these cities as
'Antarctic gateways'.
The usage of the 60°S latitude for its tentative definition of the Southern Ocean coincides
with the most important political definition of the Antarctic. Article VI of the 1959 Antarctic
Treaty notes:Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway," aid="C
The provisions of the present Treaty shall apply to the area south of 60° South Latitude,
including all ice shelves, but nothing in the present Treaty shall prejudice or in any way
affect the rights, or the exercise of the rights, of any State under international law with re-
gard to the high seas within that area.
This area of application entered into force in June 1961.
These lines and zones are just one way of tracing the Antarctic. In a more imaginative
sense, we might acknowledge appeals to the sublime and wilderness. For 19th- and 20th-
century explorers and scientists, the Antarctic was as much traced via the sublime as it was
tentatively mapped and charted. As a literary expression, this notion refers to the capacity
of things in nature to overwhelm the human mind by their sheer grandeur and immense
possibility. A place or landscape might, as a consequence, inspire awe or provoke terror.
So the sublime refers to something beyond the calculable and measurable, and more to a
state of mind. The Antarctic in this particular sense is a true frontier of the human, and
a testing ground of men in particular. Apsley Cherry-Gerrard's memoir of Scott's last ex-
pedition, The Worst Journey in the World (1922), memorably referred to the Antarctic as
a place of privation and suffering. As he noted caustically, 'Polar exploration is at once
the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.' But it
could also be compelling, as Cherry-Gerrard noted, 'And I tell you, if you have the desire
for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.'
