Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Antarctic meteorites are well preserved, and this collection of samples has been used
by scientists to consider how bits of the Moon, and even Mars, may have ended up in
Antarctica, after asteroids and comets impacted on those celestial bodies. One of the most
famous is the ALH84001 meteorite, a Martian rock, which has been linked by Americ-
an scientists to possible evidence of ancient biological activity. Scientists attached to the
Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) programme demonstrated that the Antarctic
provides a rich source for experimenting and contemplating the four-billion-year-old solar
system and the evolution of the planetary system. As John Carpenter's fictional film The
Thing (1982) postulated, extra-terrestrial life might have visited the Antarctic before us.
Other writers and artists, including H. P. Lovecraft in his novella At the Mountains of Mad-
ness (1936), speculated on the existence of past civilizations and ancient life forms once
residing in the Antarctic. The figure of the scientist, such as the fictional geologist William
Dyer, is critical to making sense of evidence of past life.
The Antarctic is not the Arctic
The Antarctic is not the Arctic. The two polar regions are distinct, and are connected with
one another only in certain ways such as the migratory patterns of wildlife and, in the case
of the United Kingdom, a tendency to study 'cold places' comparatively. The creation of
the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge in the 1920s is a case in
point. In other parts of the world - Canada, for example - the idea that one would study
the inhabited Arctic together with a region without an indigenous human population would
be treated with scepticism, and perhapqongovernments even hostility.
In a literal sense, however, 'the Antarctic' owes its origins to the Greek word for the Arctic.
The Ancient Greeks named the North Pole Arktos (the bear), and the region lying opposite
was termed as the 'Anti-Arctic', or as we know it, the Antarctic. So, at least one further way
to define the Antarctic is to invoke its geographical and literal opposite. Fundamentally,
the Antarctic and the Arctic are very different kinds of spaces and places. The Antarctic
consists of a pole-centred continent that is mountainous and ice-covered. An ocean sur-
rounds it. The Arctic is a polar ocean basin, which is surrounded by land, including the
Euro-Asian and North American continents. The Arctic is considerably warmer than the
Antarctic because so much more of the region is at sea level rather than several kilometres
above it.
Biologically, too, the Antarctic is quite different to the Arctic. Whereas four million people
live in the Arctic region, there is no indigenous human population in the Antarctic. Flora
and fauna generally are more isolated, and there is less evidence of trans-polar migra-
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