Research stations- Halley

The Halley Research Station is a British research base run by the British Antarctic Survey. It mainly researches atmospheric sciences, but also survey, geology and glaciology. It was founded in 1957. 

Youngest person to ski to the South Pole

Lewis Clarke was 16 years old when he skied to the South Pole. The year 11 student from Bristol spent 48 days skiing 702 miles along the Hercules Inlet route.

On the expedition, he only had one day off. Skiing 8 to 9 hours a day, he covered about 18 miles a day, battling against gale force winds and temperatures as low as -40.

After his 7 week expedition, he literally went straight into his GCSE mocks and then into the real exams. (in August he got his results – 7 A*s and 3 As) He actually took his revision with him to Antarctica!

And this wasn't even the first time he had broken a world record (and still holds the record). When he was 12, Lewis and a team of friends became the youngest team to ever swim the Channel in relay.

His blog for his record breaking expedition can be found at https://youngesttosouthpole.wordpress.com

Beneath the ice

This radar image taken in 1998 shows just how much ice is covering Antarctica. Its showing a slice of 1.9 miles of ice over mountains spanning a few hundred kilometres either side of the South Pole. (The horizontal scale differs from the vertical.... those Trans-Antarctic Mountains are not that steep!)

Over many years, snow that fell at the surface has been compressed and transformed into successive layers of ice. The process continues and layers become further compressed under the tremendous weight of the ice sheet. The ice that makes up a single layer is a uniform age and contains information about the composition of the atmosphere at the time that the snow initially fell.

Radar instruments on aircraft can detect these layers by transmitting microwave signals and recording the magnitude of the echoes returned to the instrument. The method works because the strength of the echo varies depending on factors such as density and the amount of impurities in each layer.

'What Lies Below' NASA Earth Observatory

98% of the continent is covered in ice that is miles deep. In fact, 70% of the world fresh water is sitting frozen on Antarctica. For a desert, that is a lot of frozen water. And to top it off, all that ice is moving very very slowly. (Another topic for another time I think)

Want to read more about Antarctic ice thickness, you cant go wrong with the snappily titled paper 'Bedmap2: improved ice bed, surface and thickness datasets for Antarctica' published in 2013.

Cycling to the South Pole

On the 27th December 2013, Maria Leijerstam became the first person in the world to cycle from the edge of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole. She also set the new World Record for the fastest human powered coast to pole traverse, completing her journey in 10 days, 14hrs and 56 minutes.

Maria, who is from Wales, cycled every day for 10 to 17 hours without a rest day. She reached 2941m when crossing the Trans-Antarctic Mountain range on the Leverett Glacier.

The Polar Cycle she used was specially designed and is the only one in the world.

To learn more about the White Ice Cycle expedition, visit http://www.whiteicecycle.com.

The shapes of snowflakes

Did you know that there are a staggering 121 categories of snowflake? 

Antarctica

Antarctica is Earths last great wilderness.

Its a huge mountainous continent. A desert that is locked in ice. Its so cold, that it almost never snows.

It was only discovered 195 years ago in 1820

Although the climate is incredibly harsh, Antarctica has a wide biodiversity, including 235 different types of marine organisms. However, there are only 2 types of flowering plant that grow there.

Antarctic has no government and no economic activity Many countries use Antarctica, but are governed by a treaty to ensure its never destroyed.