By: Brian Grady
Submitted: 2010-08-30 20:19:58 | Word Count: 698
In order to ensure the availability of scientific research on Antarctica, it can only be utilized for science. The most recognized detail of Antarctica may be the giant ice sheet. It almost covers the entire continent and then goes out into the ocean for hundreds of miles, too. The greatest one of these shelves, the Ross Ice Shelf, turns out to be almost as big as Texas. Current calculations demonstrate that the edge of the ice shelf migrates north at the speed of around 1800 feet each year.
Holding almost 90 percent of all the ice on earth, this continent contains about two percent of all the water on our globe. Sea level is greatly affected by the inland ice. If the majority of ice melted, sea levels would rise and destroy lives and property around the world.
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If all this ice were to melt, then the sea level would go up by a minimal of 250 feet. So, it is important for studies to be conducted on the present stability of the ice of Antarctica. If the ice is presently waxing greater or waning is not important. The ice has captured lots of water, but also geophysical history for up to a million years.
The ice and snow have recorded events like nuclear explosions, the use of leaded gasoline and even lead smelting. One measurement scientists have preformed has looked into the number of lead particulates that accumulate on the ice over the past 60 years. Such ice surfaces have shown a disturbing rise in lead concentration over the last ten years because of the precipitation of the decomposing lead alkyls that came from the combustion of gasoline containing lead. Maybe at last we will begin to understand the serious danger posed by pollution.
Although no elements were contained in the polar snows, trace amounts of DDT have been discovered in seals, some fish, and penguins in Antarctica. The ice layers can also provide information on items from space that have breached the atmosphere and imbedded in the ice sheet over time. Predictions could be offered for the types and quantity of particles that space vehicles will contact, assuming additional research demonstrated that such particles have a repeating pattern.
In Antarctica, the majority of the plant life are lichens. The greatest quantity of land animals are springtails and mites. A wingless fly is the biggest land animal there. Remarkably, none of the insects on Antarctica can't fly. The southernmost mammals, the Weddell seal as well as the flightless penguin, live in the encircling seas. In diving as far down as 1,500 feet and staying underwater as long as 30 minutes in his earnest search for food, the Weddell seal has amazed researchers.
Adelie penguins like to nest on iceless areas on Antarctica's coasts. When winters approaches, they migrate north. These penguins will migrate north in the winter, showing remarkable ability to navigate using the sun and their inner biological clocks. As a study, six of the Adelie penguins were released over 2,400 miles from their natural habitat and three of them found their way back within ten months. To further this experiment, some were released at the South Pole. After they emerged, they studied their new environment, focused on the sun a bit, and then headed exactly in the right direction for their home nests.
You can even find the largest creature to ever live on Planet Earth near Antarctica. Today practically extinct, the great blue whale consumes almost a ton of shrimp every day, and they prove to be five times the size of any dinosaur that ever walked the earth. Compared to the Arctic, Antarctic seas contain a much greater diversity of fish. Ten percent of the bottom-dwelling fish found in Antarctica can be found somewhere else in the world. This bodes well for the importance of the Antarctic Convergence.
