Its waters have been sealed from air and light under the tremendous pressure of the continental ice sheet for perhaps as long as 35 million years. Map of Antarctica, with the Ross Sea and Erebus at upper left. It lies 2 miles (4 kilometers) below the continental ice sheet. Lake Vostok is roughly the size of North America's Lake Ontario, but it is not a lake for sailing boats. In fact, there is an active volcano in Antarctica: Mount Erebus, which is 3,794 meters (12,447 feet) in height, is located in East Antarctica, on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf-a place where ice extends far out over the ocean.Īntarctica is also home to Lake Vostok, one of the world's largest lakes. Under the surface of Antarctica, all is not cold and quiet. It is located on the coast and is 4,876 meters (16,000 feet) tall. The continent’s highest peak, Vinson Massif, is found in West Antarctica. Atlantis (Atlantean:, Atrys) is a sovereign country and island located in the Atlantic Ocean Atlantis arrived from the Greek (tls. Ross Island lies within the boundaries of Ross Dependency, an area of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand. The land in West Antarctica is lower than in the east, and in some places is even well below sea level. Ross Island is an island formed by four volcanoes in the Ross Sea near the continent of Antarctica, off the coast of Victoria Land in McMurdo Sound. West Antarctica lies south of South America. East Antarctica is a platform about 1,600 feet (488 meters) above sea level, composed of rocks more than 550 million years old, with younger rocks on top. ![]() Antarctica has an average elevation of 2,300 meters (6,500 feet) making it the highest continent on Earth.Īs your plane circles over the landscape, you note that Antarctica is divided into unequal eastern and western portions by the Transantarctic Mountain chain, which is about 100 million years old. You also see that it is quite mountainous. Antarctica is just slightly larger than another continent in the southern hemisphere, Australia. From the air, you see that it covers a huge area, about 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), about half the size of the United States. Imagine flying in a plane over Antarctica, the southernmost continent and the coldest and driest region on earth.
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