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Antarctica

Putin Receives 'Prehistoric' Aqua From Antarctic lake

Sun, 02/12/2012 - 13:33 by Neka Sehgal

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin received the first water sample on Friday from Lake Vostok, an enormous freshwater lake hidden beneath the ice-covered surface of the Antarctica landmass.

Record set for crossing Antarctica

Fri, 12/10/2010 - 11:36 by Rakhi

London -- A United Kingdom expedition to the Antarctic has claimed the record for the fastest land crossing of the ice-covered continent, officials said.

The 10-member team of the Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition completed the crossing in less than 13 days, smashing previous records, the BBC reported Thursday.

The team set off from the Union Glacier airstrip Nov. 25 and arrived Thursday on the Ross Ice Shelf, 1,209 miles away.

The team, composed of explorers, mechanics and scientists, traveled in convoy led by a propeller-driven scout vehicle. Two large trucks followed, carrying most of the crew and equipment.

The expedition used ice-penetrating radar to avoid crevasses.

Seals help map ocean floor

Fri, 10/08/2010 - 10:19 by Prince damin

Santa Cruz, Calif. -- Seals diving deep in the ocean for food near Antarctica are helping provide extremely accurate data for use in mapping the sea floor, oceanographers say.

Seals, walruses, whales and other large marine creatures have helped oceanographers before, as scientists have glued sensors to the animals' bodies that measures factors like temperature and salinity, ScienceNews.org reported.

The new work with elephant seals is the first to extract information on the shape of the seafloor -- known as bathymetry -- from new sensors, glued to the animals' heads, which can measure pressure and hence depth.

"You can actually map the ocean floor," Daniel Costa, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, says.

Sir Earnest Shackleton’s whisky crate opens

Sat, 08/14/2010 - 10:01 by Priyanka

A crate full of rarest Scotch whisky, especially prepared for Sir Earnest Shackleton’s 1907 Antarctic expedition, was carefully opened at the Christchurch Museum in New Zealand on Friday, four years after being recovered from its century old Antarctic ice prison.

Iceberg breaks off from Mertz Glacier, could be a threat to marine life

Sat, 02/27/2010 - 12:10 by Ishita Sood

According to Australian and French scientists, a gigantic iceberg has broken away from the Mertz Glacier in the Antarctic region, causing another enormous iceberg, B9B, to collide with it.

Grace Satellite shows ice loss in East Antarctica

Mon, 11/23/2009 - 16:36 by Ishita Sood

New York, November 23 -- According to a recent study by scientists at the University of Texas, East Antarctica’s ice has started melting at a faster rate since 2006 which could do some serious destruction to the sea level.

Ice bridge ruptures in Antarctic

Sun, 04/05/2009 - 22:59 by rcrchauhan

London, April 5 --An ice bridge linking a shelf of ice the size of Jamaica to two islands in Antarctica has snapped, BBC reported.

Scientists say the collapse could mean the Wilkins Ice Shelf is on the brink of breaking away, and provides further evidence of rapid change in the region.

Sited on the western side of the Antarctic peninsula, the Wilkins shelf has been retreating since the 1990s.

Researchers regarded the ice bridge as an important barrier, holding the remnant shelf structure in place.

Its removal will allow ice to move more freely between Charcot and Latady islands, into the open ocean.