What is so beautiful about a land completely covered by ice??? Well, beauty lies in different forms in different places. Antarctica is the ice cover we find near South Pole. It is a permanently frozen ground surrounded by water, and is about 1 1/2 times larger than the United States. The world’s largest desert is on Antarctica. 98 percent of the land is covered with a continental ice sheet; the remaining 2 percent of land is barren rock. Antarctica has about 87% of the world’s ice.
The South Pole is the coldest, windiest, and driest place on Earth. On average, most of Antarctica gets less than 2 inches of snow fall each year. Antarctica is a fast developing tourist attraction. There is now ample opportunity to ascend Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on Earth; to fly via helicopter or venture by boat to penguin colonies; and to really make the most of a terrain that teems with wildlife, with a multitude of birds, seals, albatrosses and enormous whales; and so on.
Another wonderful sight you can experience here is its wild life. Although there are only a few native species, those that have adapted to the harsh environment thrive in large numbers. Penguin populations are counted in the tens of thousands in some rookeries.
If you plan to go on a trip, spend time visiting the Antarctic Peninsula, Falkland Islands and the mountainous South Georgia. Antarctica cruises offer zodiac excursions for up-close encounters with wildlife and the blue icebergs that float quietly in the surrounding waters. You can experience Antarctic kayaking or onshore camping. On Antarctica tours, onboard experts lecture on the region's natural history, weather, and captivating wildlife commonly seen during a cruise to the frozen continent.
Not reflected sunlight, but reflected radar beams read by satellite have given Antarctica new dimensions. Radar images do not record dark and light spots on the Earth's surface. Dark does not mean shadow. Smoothness and fineness; finely powdered snow, as in the wind-blown snow dunes, and smooth ice, like the ice-plateau surface over Lake Vostok absorb radar, making those parts of the image look dark. Coarse features old pitted ice, rock slides, and crevasses scatter radar beams. They look bright. Radar is not sun dependent it's great photography for the Antarctic night. It's not blocked by clouds, which it passes through. Antarctic cloud cover doesn't spoil the day for imaging ice flows or Ice River runs.
The images and immensity of these ice rivers sparked Whole Earth's desire to present the un-bio bioregion of Antarctica, the coldest, windiest, driest, and, on average, highest continent. No human inhabited this continent before the establishment of research stations. No mammal or bird in recent geological history has spent a full year on land. The largest full-time animal resident is a midge less than half an inch long. Only ice algae and ice bacteria seem to be at home; last year, Russian researchers discovered a bacteria colony two miles down into the ice sheet. The ice sheet's thickness averages over three miles.
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