Antarctica has aroused human curiosity and fascination since its discovery. And it couldn’t be different. After all, it is a continent of extremes, covered in an eternal ice sheet and isolated at the ends of the planet.
But, for all the fascination it causes, after two centuries of human presence there, for most people Antarctica still boils down to some stereotypes. Ice, snow, cold, icebergs, penguins. And not much more than that.
It is so far away and inaccessible, almost as if it were part of another planet. However, it is much more connected to our lives than it seems at first sight. And it goes far beyond a simple icy territory inhabited by penguins.
On Earth, there is nothing like it. Antarctica is unique. And its geological, climatic and biological particularities are fundamental to the planet’s balance and the future of humankind.
To know it more deeply is to dive into Earth's past and its most untouched land. And to get to know it better, there's nothing like starting by unraveling its origin. After all, how did Antarctica come about?
The study of the Antarctic geological development history must be done in the context of the place Antarctica occupied within an ancient supercontinent called Gondwana. This supercontinent Gondwana included present-day South America, Africa, India, New Zealand, Australia, and Antarctica, which are currently separated, why? Because after its formation and the merging of its continents, around at least 100 million years ago, it all started to fracture and separate.
This slow continental drift ended between 30 and 40 million years ago, when South America and Australia broke free from Antarctica, isolating it at the far south of the planet. The climate, which was temperate until then, underwent an intense process of glaciation. Millions of years later, the continent that had forests and dinosaurs was completely covered in ice.
And Antarctica as we know it today was finally created. The continent of superlatives. The most remote and unknown.
The wildest and most preserved. The coldest place on Earth. The main factor that determines Antarctica's temperature is its geographical position.
It’s at the pole. So, if we think in terms of the distribution of the incident energy, the incident solar energy on Earth, that energy is much more concentrated in the tropical region than in the polar region, and since Antarctica is at one of the poles, it’s at the south pole of the planet, it’s only natural that it receives less energy, a lower concentration of solar energy and this is the main reason why Antarctica is so icy. So cold.
Antarctica has an area of 14 million square kilometers, including the continent, the peninsula and the surrounding islands. It is the equivalent of 1. 6 times the size of Brazil.
In the winter, with the widening of the surrounding frozen sea strip, its area doubles in size. About 98% of the entire Antarctic territory is under ice. And the small portion of dry land is concentrated mainly at the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the temperature is slightly more moderate, ranging from -20 to 0 degrees Celsius.
The continent inland is much colder, with thermometers reaching minus 55 degrees during winter. It is in this part of Antarctica, more precisely at Russia's Vostok Station, where the lowest temperature on Earth was recorded: minus 89. 2 degrees.
The heart of Antarctica is a huge plateau with an average altitude of 2,500 meters above sea level, making it the highest continent in the world, also contributing to low local temperatures. This plateau is covered by an average of two and a half kilometers thick ice layer. Such a gigantic amount of ice, representing 70% of all fresh water available in the world.
In other words, Antarctica is a valuable natural reservoir for the future of humankind. And yet, with so much water, oddly enough, it is the driest continent on the planet. On the coast, the level of precipitation in the form of snow or rain is slightly higher.
But inland, it is so low that it is not even half of the recorded for the most arid region of northeastern Brazil. And that has an explanation. It is a region with a particular circulation, there is an anticyclone, it is a high-pressure system predominant almost all over Antarctica at the lowest levels And this type of circulation greatly reduces precipitation on the Antarctic continent reaching very low levels, ranging from 150 to 200 millimeters of annual rainfall, that is considered almost a desert region.
It snows very little in the Antarctica inland. The ice sheet that covers the continent only exists because it has been accumulating for millions of years! Never melting!
And besides being very dry, Antarctica also has many winds. There is no place in the world that winds so much and so hard. In some parts, winds exceed 300 km/h in winter, speed equivalent to the most devastating category of hurricanes.
100 km/h squalls are common. As winds move from the inland to the coast, they are responsible for moving a large mass of snow into the ocean, forming the ice shelves. These ice shelves float over the sea, and are 100 to 1,000 meters thick, including the submerged part.
They are made up of freshwater as they form from the ice that comes from the continent. And they are different from the sea ice, which mostly come in winter, when the sea saltwater freezes around the continent. Sea ice is much less thick and stable than the ice shelves, which are so large and perennial that they incorporate the continent's contour and expand over decades.
More than 40 percent of the Antarctic coast has ice shelves, the largest are Ross and Filchner-Ronne, hundreds of kilometers long. An important issue about ice shelves is that these ice shelves anchor a great part of continental ice. As the snow precipitates, enormous pressure is exerted on the ice on the continent and that ice tends to flow toward the edges of the continent, becoming more unstable at its most distant edges.
In this case, ice can flow and fracture producing small pieces of ice that are introduced into the Southern Ocean. This crumbling mass of ice from the continent is our famous iceberg. The production of these icebergs depends on a number of factors, depends on the regional temperature, on the characteristics of the ice itself, on issues related to earthquake and tsunami.
All of this can produce, increase or decrease the frequency of icebergs. These icebergs float in the Southern Ocean, which circumvents the Antarctic continent and influences the waters of the entire planet through its Circumpolar Current. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is a very peculiar current, it is one of the most important in the world because it is a closed system, it surrounds the entire Antarctic continent.
Along with this, it delimits or characterizes the Southern Ocean, interconnecting all major ocean basins: the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. So what it ends up doing is mixing the waters of different continents. This is of great biological importance, because some… the temperature, salinity, and other properties of the ocean end up being regulated there in the Southern Ocean by the existence of this current.
The connection between the Southern Ocean and the other oceans also interferes with the global temperature balance through the so-called Thermohaline Circulation, a current generated by the difference in temperature and water density. So what does the ocean do? The upper part absorbs the excess heat that gets to the tropical region, transports this excess heat to the poles, in the case of Antarctica, as these warmer waters get closer to the continent, some of that heat is lost to the atmosphere and the formation of the dense waters occurs, which are colder and more saline waters, and as they form on the edge of the Antarctic, they sink and return to the tropical ocean regions.
It redistributes the heat of planet Earth. It is not a coincidence, that Antarctica is known as a kind of natural refrigerator of the planet. Without it, global temperature maintenance would be compromised.
For Brazil, in particular, the sixth closest country to Antarctica, this influence on climate is even more striking. When you have a large outlet for cold air masses from Antarctica, they push the circulation further to the North, and then, these other air masses in Southern Chile and southern Argentina can reach Brazil. So, understanding these atmospheric phenomena in Antarctica may be of great value to our prediction of our daily lives and our planning of activities in our country.
The importance of Antarctica for life on Earth is not restricted to climate influence. Its particular characteristics and its condition as the most preserved territory in the world make it the ideal environment for studying the history of the planet and various natural phenomena. This makes it a true open-air laboratory.
Many of these studies are related to the Antarctic atmosphere, which presents several peculiarities because of its polar position and the low temperature and humidity of the region. On the icy continent, the atmosphere is much thinner than on the rest of the globe. And it does not have the magnetic field that blocks particles from solar flares elsewhere.
The combination of these factors makes the Antarctic atmosphere very sensitive to environmental changes. It manifests changes quickly and intensely. That is why scientists consider it a kind of thermometer for the planet’s health.
It was in Antarctica, for example, where the hole in the ozone layer was first detected. The chemical part of the Antarctic atmosphere is also fundamental in research and scientific knowledge. In principle, that region would be the purest on the planet, farthest from all the contaminations that humanity produces and allows us to perceive what is the degree of real contamination humanity is managing to inject into the planet's atmosphere, that I can take pollution measurements in large urban centers, as we do, but I don't have a reference of what would be ideal, what would be natural.
While Antarctica will allow me this kind of reference, it will be a basis not only for what is ideal, but the degree of change. The same potential for scientific research offered by the atmosphere is also repeated on dry land. More precisely on the continent ice sheet, which acts as a kind of natural museum of the planet's climate history.
When the ice forms, it is highly aerated at its top. As snow is deposited on snow, it compresses these bubbles, becoming more closed and better structured. And in this air bubble there are not only the gas molecules that make up the atmosphere, but also tiny microparticles that are stored in it, so, these air bubbles and this polar environment is actually a small ecosystem where it keeps a little bit of the atmosphere, the gases that make up the atmosphere of the past.
These air bubbles trapped in the ice are known as "Ice Cores". And the farther below the surface they are, the older are the atmospheric traces stored within them. Therefore, digging into the Antarctic ice sheet is almost like traveling back in time.
Ice cores keep everything that passes through the atmosphere, then desert dust, sea spray, human pollution from continents, variation on the use of the soil, volcanic eruptions, everything that generates particulate matter into the atmosphere is, in a way, transported to Antarctica. So, each element measured in every little part of the ice core gives you different information, gives you information on how the deserts are growing, gives you information on how the ocean winds are, gives you information on the frequency of the cyclones, the global intensity and the global impact of volcanic eruptions and how far human pollution can go. As scientists discovered the relationship between depth and chronology, they could conclude, for example, that about ten meters below the ice sheet are air bubbles from the time of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb.
Three-hundred meters deeper are bubbles of the air breathed in the time of Jesus Christ. The oldest records known to date from approximately 800 thousand years ago. And there are many other secrets hidden beneath the Antarctic surface.
Among them, more than 145 submerged lakes. These are areas with liquid water, located tens or even hundreds of meters below the ice sheet. Lake Vostok, discovered in 1996, is the largest.
As far as we know, it has been sealed by ice for hundreds of thousands of years and may hold biological and geological information of priceless scientific value. So, these environments are interesting to try to find the oldest cell based on… the oldest ancestor that gave rise to life, which hasn't been described yet, right? And also understand these limits to life.
There are few places on the planet that contribute to the knowledge of evolution, adaptation, limits of life, as Antarctica still does. The presence of microorganisms within Antarctica is not restricted to subglacial lakes. Microorganisms are carried by the wind or housed in specific areas on or inside the ice.
They are called extremophile beings, adapted to survive in extreme conditions. It's interesting to mention that for the microorganism there are two ways we can interpret this life, right? One is cellular life when it can multiply, right?
The other is that stage that it is metabolically active, but it is not multiplying, it stays alive there on that ice, but it is not multiplying, so it's different limits. And it's interesting because in the 1970s, not so long ago, it was believed that the polar regions would be a sterile medium, that there were no microorganisms, no life. And even in such a harsh environment, microorganisms are not alone; The most complex living beings are their company.
The Emperor Penguins! The greatest species of penguin, and the only one that uses Antarctica inland as a breeding habitat. They can reproduce at minus 80, minus 90 degrees in temperature.
they lay the egg and the parental care takes about a year and a half until they can let the penguin chick independent. So, the female feeds, walks inland, lays the egg, passes it to the male, the male stays there two to three months hatching the egg, while the female comes to the sea to feed and then she returns with feeding, when the chick is born, so she feeds it in the continent inland. And they keep taking turns.
So, the male and female fetch food from the sea and return to the inland and these trips take 30 to 60 days, on average. The Emperor Penguins resort to the coast, because they know that this is where life is manifested in Antarctica. The scarcity of the inland contrasts with the abundance of the coast, where temperatures are less aggressive, ice opens gaps for dry land and the Southern Ocean offers the continent's largest food source.
Were it not for the ocean, there would be virtually no life in Antarctica, since the terrestrial ecosystem is quite poor even in coastal regions. Basically, we will find very simple vegetation there it is not the basis for food either, because all the food comes from the sea. But it is… composed mainly of lichens, mosses and flowering plants, which here for us in the tropical regions are the most representative, for Antarctica there are only two native species: one grass and one Caryophyllacea.
This limited terrestrial ecosystem is offset by the waters of the Southern Ocean, which feed all Antarctic animals, including birds and mammals. Extremely fertile, and isolated in the polar region, with very cold and dense waters, the Southern Ocean is a full plate for species that have managed to adapt to their conditions. Therefore, it combines low biodiversity with very high biomass.
That is, there are relatively few species; but the number of individuals within each species is enormous. And the fertility that enables this massive fauna is born with microalgae and its relationship with ice. So, in Antarctica, microalgae, which may be in the phytoplankton community as well as in ice, are the basis of the food web.
The heart of the Antarctic ecosystem is basically this dynamic, this seasonal variation of the sea freezing and thawing. Why? Because when the sea freezes, it is in this sea ice that these microalgae grow.
The turbulence is so little, it is like a cave, because the ice doesn't let the wind create turbulence. When the summer starts, it begins to thaw, the sea ice begins to thaw and forms something called the greenbelt, all these algae, these ice microalgae go into the water and concentrate there. So, summer is the time for great feed and great reproduction.
And in the food chain, the first to benefit from this abundance is a well-known crustacean in Antarctica, Krill, which performs one of the most important functions for the local ecosystem. It is an essential link of transfer from primary production to the rest of the food web, because it is a filter, it eats phytoplankton mainly, so it is at the base of the trophic web and it is consumed by a number of other organisms. There are many Antarctic animals that feed on krill, birds in general, especially penguins, some seals, large whales, including the blue whale.
As it is relatively large, it has about six centimeters long and it is very abundant, so it can serve as food for these large animals. Antarctic Krill is considered the most abundant animal species on the planet. The biomass of the population that inhabits the Southern Ocean reaches 500 million tons, double the total weight of humans on Earth.
There are so many Krills that it is possible to find 10,000 to 30,000 individuals per cubic meter of water, in shoals that reach 6 kilometers in length. Because it is a large and easy prey, about half of Krill's population is consumed each year in the Southern Ocean. And replaced by a quick reproduction process.
Among Krill's main predators are fish. There are millions of them in the southern seas. And most of them are unique species not found anywhere else on the planet.
The Antarctic continent has been moving away from South America very slowly and the temperature of the Antarctic continent has been dropping very slowly, too. Then, there were a number of mutations that allowed these animals to adapt to a cold which did not happen in the rest of South America. The largest fish families in the Southern Ocean are the Nototheniidae, or Cod Ice Fishes, and the Channichthyidae, or Channichthyidae (Crocodile Icefish), an almost transparent species that has no red blood cells.
They all have special features that allow them to survive in habitat as harsh as Antarctic waters. They have, for example, an antifreeze protein in their blood, as well as mechanisms for adapting to varying salinity, which in the Southern Ocean is intense because of melting ice shelves. The challenges that these species have to face are many, such as the lack of food, the light itself, as in winter it is very common for bays to freeze the sea, so the animal has to live with a smaller food availability and then, at times, it experiences very long prolonged fasts, more than a month without food.
And they are fish that usually stand in the bottom to save energy, so they will only strike when they have food, catch the food, then come back and rest again. They are not fish that swim in the waterline. The bottom of the Antarctic Sea is also full of life.
In addition to many fish, there is a rich community of benthic organisms, the creatures that inhabit the seabed, ranging from bacteria and worms to crustaceans and starfish. As seen with other species, the extreme conditions of the Antarctic environment directly interfere with the development of this community, which exhibits unique properties in the Southern Ocean. One is gigantism, which occurs because benthic beings have much slower metabolism at lower temperatures, living longer and growing bigger.
One other hypothesis for gigantism is that, in Antarctica, there are no large predators for the benthic fauna, of the invertebrates. For example, it has no sharks and so it allows organisms to grow to larger sizes. So, there are some starfish that can reach up to 60 centimeters in diameter, it looks like a sun, there is a worm called a tapeworm that is a (misunderstood) that it is a predator, in Antarctica, we know them here to be a few centimeters long, there they can grow up to two meters in length.
And isopods, for example, that are related to our woodlouse, here, on our coast, even on temperate tropical region, they are small. There are some species that can reach up to 25 centimeters. You do not have to be 100% of the time in the water to benefit from the Southern Ocean.
Because it also enables the life of seabirds. Among them, the most numerous and representative of all: The Penguin. There are 7 species of penguins that inhabit the Antarctic region.
Besides the Emperor, there are the Adélie Penguin, the Gentoo, the Chinstrap, among others. They live from 15 to 20 years, and are generally populous species, especially the Adélie ones, that gather in penguin colonies with more than one and a half million individuals. With the exception of the Emperor, all other penguins live in coastal regions, both on the continent and the sub-Antarctic islands.
And they do it precisely because they depend on the sea for food. The penguin is a bird, like any other bird, it can't stay submerged long, but long enough to fish. So, the main adaptations it has to resist the cold is the feather layer.
It has many feathers very close to each other, as if they were strands of hair, they are very close, so sea water can not touch the skin and it can form an air barrier between water and body. In addition, the upper limbs that other birds have flight-promoting feathers, the penguins also have the same feathers, but they are short, so they work a lot like oars, they are adapted for swimming, as if penguins were flying underwater. Penguins do not fly, but most Antarctic birds fly a lot, as they are migratory.
This is the case of skuas and neotropic cormorants, quite present on the seafront. And of the two largest specimens of Antarctic birds: the petrel and the albatross, which reach a wingspan of up to four meters. And they are birds with enormous speed and autonomy of flight, able to cross the Drke Passage to feed in the Falkland Islands, covering a thousand kilometers in just two days.
Another surprising feature of these two birds concerns their breeding habits. Albatrosses are monogamous, they choose a partner and stay with that partner for life, they always breed with the same male or female and most Albatrosses, like the Giant Petrel, when they become adults, they return every year to the same area to reproduce. So, on Elephant Island, where we have been working since 1986.
We retrieved a female Giant Petrel who had been tagged in 1972 as an adult and we retrieved this female in the same nest every year until 1992. The Antarctic birds share space with a very diverse group of animals representative of the local fauna: the pinnipeds. Descended from terrestrial carnivorous animals such as bears and otters, pinnipeds are marine mammals that may be considered amphibians, as they live on land where they breed and exchange hair, but also need water to feed.
Antarctic Pinnipeds are divided into two groups: the fur seals and the true seals. We have three species of fur seals which are: The Antarctic Fur Seal; the Subantarctic Fur Seal; and the Kerguelen Fur Seal, And five species of true seals, which are: Leopard seal; the Ross Seal, the Weddell Seal, the Crabeater Seal, and the Elephant Seal. Pinnipeds feed primarily on fish and krill.
But, some species also hunt penguins in the water. This is the case of the leopard seal, one of the most aggressive animals in Antarctica, extremely fast and with a very strong bite. Despite their physical similarity, pinnipeds have numerous physiological and behavioral differences.
Fur seals, for example, have more agility on land, as their limbs are articulated, while seals need to drag, and so are much slower when not in the water. The peculiarities also manifest in each habitat. And in the way they relate to ice.
These individuals tend to follow the edge of the ice. In summer, there is a retreat of the ice bank, these animals follow it, and in winter, an advance of the ice bank, and they feed on that edge. Some animals, such as the Elephant Seal, are able to resist the presence of ice a little more.
Other animals will have problems; fur seals will avoid ice as much as they can because they are small after all. Body size helps with this seals have a very large diving capacity and as a result they can use ice and be in regions with broken ice, but they need ice that has water underneath to be able to make the hole, dive, feed and come back. Excellent divers, the seals can stay up to an hour underwater.
And as they travel long distances, they have helped researchers map their own migratory dynamics through satellite trackers attached to their bodies. Similar feature is adopted with the largest mammals of the Southern Ocean: the whales! The seas around Antarctica are inhabited by a large diversity of cetaceans, including whales and dolphins.
Among them are the blue whale, which is the largest animal on the planet; the humpback, the largest in Antarctica; in addition to fin whales, the second largest in the Southern Ocean, and minke, the most adapted to the polar cold. Most of them are migratory so, in the warmer months, they go to Antarctica to feed, where they find krill, in the Antarctic Peninsula, the main one there would be the Humpback Whale, for the most part of the region, too. If we take a little farther North of the Peninsula, in slightly wider, deeper ocean waters, the Fin Whale are a little more numerous, more abundant.
If we take it near sea ice, then the species that has the most affinity for ice is the Antarctic Minke Whale, it often ends up in more compact ice, and of course, it has to rise to breathe, so it uses the holes, the polynyas in sea ice to rise and breathe, but the other species do not have such affinity. Orcas are also very present in the Southern Ocean. Largest species of the dolphin family, they are the most feared predators in Antarctica, situated at the top of the food chain.
They prey on different foods, so there are some that feed, for example, on other marine mammals, so they prey on mink whales, There are others that prey on penguins, also fish and yet others that prefer the seals. If orcas presently pose the greatest threat to whales and seals in polar waters, in the past another predator has managed to be even more lethal: humans, responsible for pushing some species to brink of extinction. To know the history of man in Antarctica is to know the history of their exploration.
This is because Antarctica is the only continent on the planet that has no native population. That is, prior to the landing of its first explorers, no other human being had ever inhabited this part of the globe. Although there is evidence that as early as the 7th century, people from Tierra del Fuego and Polynesia visited Antarctica, the first to see it and document the achievement was the English navigator William Smith on February 19, 1819.
And the discovery was by chance. Sailing from Argentina to Chile, Smith decided to cross Cape Horn farther south than usual to avoid climate adversity. Descending below the 62º parallel, he spotted the archipelago that would later be called the South Shetland Islands, north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
He then reported the finding to the Royal English Navy, which organized an official expedition to the site. Thus, in 1920, Captain Edward Bransfield landed on the largest island of the archipelago and named it King George Island, taking formal possession of the territory in the name of the English Crown. Then, they sailed south past Deception Island and finally reached the northern part of the continent.
Coincidentally, that same year, two other navigators arrived in Antarctica, each departing from a different point and unaware of the other expeditions. The Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen landed in eastern Antarctica. And the American whale catcher captain, Nathaniel Palmer, circled the Antarctic Peninsula.
Therefore, they are all considered co-discoverers of Antarctica. And as soon as word got around, many explorers and adventurers departed, beginning a period of countless predatory expeditions. At this first moment, Antarctica's main attractions were the riches abundantly offered by its waters, especially seals, whose fur was worth a fortune in the European and North American markets.
At that time, over a period of just seven years, more than 3 million sealskins were taken from the islands surrounding Antarctica. It is estimated that 100,000 seal pups died every year due to the death of their mothers. Also because of their fur, fur seals were almost extinct in the 19th century.
In the early 20th century, the interest of explorers shifted to whales. In this case, they were looking for oil extracted from their fat, then used as a fuel for lighting. Antarctica's first whaling station was established in 1904 by a Norwegian company.
From this year until 1993, about 2. 3 million whales were hunted in the Antarctic seas. As a result, it is estimated that only 3% of the original Humpback Whale population survived, and only 1% of the Blue Whale population.
But, fortunately Antarctica was not only a scenery of predatory expeditions. As an unowned territory and unknown continent to be pioneered, the place began to attract the attention of the world also by the scientific and geopolitical interest. In the 1930s and 1940s of the 19th century, North American, French, and British expeditions traveled the entire Antarctic coast to find out if it was indeed a continent or just a cluster of ice-bound islands.
Scientific interest grew as predatory hunts began to generate criticism around the world. In 1882 the International Polar Year was held, and three expeditions bringing together various nations departed to Antarctica. By the same time, the International Antarctic Institute in Belgium arose.
And in 1885, because of the potential scientific gains, the 6th International Geography Congress called nations to invest in the exploration of the Antarctic region. It was the beginning of what was conventionally called the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Almost two dozen expeditions were carried out over a period of just over twenty years.
And on each of these trips, new discoveries were made, new records were broken. Year after year, the human being would get farther and farther. At this time, the main goal of the explorers was to reach the Geographic South Pole, a point where man had never set foot.
And the story of this quest has two great protagonists: The Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the British Robert Scott. The two explorers, experienced in Antarctica, led expeditions to the South Pole between 1910 and 1912. The dispute between them has become internationally famous.
With more thorough preparation, including using survival techniques learned from the Arctic Eskimos, Amundsen and his five-man team arrived first at the South Pole on December 14, 1911. Scott and his team reached the goal 33 days later, on January 17, 1912. However, he and his companions died on the return trip from hunger and cold.
They were only 13 kilometers away from a supply depot. After the conquest of the South Pole, the greatest challenge for explorers became the crossing of the Antarctic continent from coast to coast, something never done before. And this new adventure featured another striking character, the British Ernest Shackleton, a renowned explorer who had almost reached the South Pole in an expedition prior to Amundsen's.
In 1914, Shackleton set sail from South Georgia Island aboard “Endurance” towards the Weddell Sea, on the Antarctic coast, from where he continues in the continent inland. However, his boat got stuck in the ice. Stranded, but at the same time at the mercy of the ice sea ice's movements, Endurance was dragged for over a thousand kilometers for eleven months until it was crushed by ice and sank, leaving the commander and his 28-man team with only three boats, some dogs and few supplies.
The crew wandered around the frozen sea for five months before reaching the small Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton and five others set out in a boat looking for help, which they found more than a thousand kilometers away, right on the island where they had started the adventure. There they got a boat to finally rescue the team.
Two years after the expedition began. Survivor of what is considered one of the most impressive adventures in the history of polar exploration, Shackleton died on the icy continent a few years later due to a heart attack he suffered during another leading expedition in Antarctica. It was January, 1922.
And his death marks the end of the Heroic Age of Exploration. From then on, trips become more mechanized and safer. In the following decades the great expeditions led by the North American Admiral Richard Byrd, the first to fly over the South Pole, took place.
By then, Antarctica had become a territory of scientific and strategic interest for countless nations. Within a few decades, seven countries unilaterally declared sovereignty over parts of the continent, which could have created unimaginable diplomatic complications. However, with the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War, the previously potential conflict scenario took a surprising turn.
Motivated by strategic issues, the countries preferred to highlight differences and invest in a growing cooperative approach to Antarctica. In 1957, in the 1st International Geophysical Year, the largest expedition ever took place, with scientists from 67 countries and the construction of 50 research stations. A year later, the Special Committee on Antarctic Research was created.
And in 1959, the 12 countries that had stations in Antarctica met at the Washington Conference and signed the “Antarctic Treaty,” the main milestone in consolidating global cooperativism for Antarctic preservation and research. The Antarctic Treaty entered into force in 1961, promoting harmony between territorialist countries and those advocating for free access. The document sets guidelines for the whole area below the parallel 60.
And the Treaty is so well done, it prohibits nuclear experiments or nuclear activities, except for specific research, it does not allow armed forces, except in order to support their programs, the military presence itself does not exist. It proposes, encourages the mutual support of countries, so it has created a large international community that really is not seen in another part of the world, a legal framework that has accommodated so well and has such a long duration. It was at this time that the first Brazilian scientist set foot in Antarctica, still with no logistical and institutional backing of the country.
An example of progressive international cooperation for the benefit of the frozen continent. Well, I was a pioneer, I went in 61. In January, 1961.
I boarded in an icebreaker in the American bay in New Zealand. And I became, on occasion, the first Brazilian scientist to participate in the Antarctic Expedition. We left Hamilton, New Zealand, crossed the entire Pacific Ocean and went exploring a section of the Antarctic coast in the Pacific Ocean.
It was an unknown coast, so we didn't even know if we were going to hit the target, the targeted region. But it was a very big adventure from January 1961. With the consolidation of the Treaty, the presence of scientists in Antarctica and concern for its ecosystem reached a new level.
In 1972, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals took place. Ten years later, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources was held. And in 1988 the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources Activities happened.
It is in this context of environmental awareness and increased participation of countries in Antarctic research that Brazil officially began its history on the Southern Continent, adhering to the Antarctic Treaty in 1975. The first Brazilian expedition took place in 1982, and included the Barão de Teffé Ship, from the Brazilian Navy, and the Professor Wladimir Besnard Ship, from the USP Oceanographic Institute. And our first trip, really, was a trip to show off the flag, to show presence in Antarctic, and show engaged interest in Antarctic.
The Treaty required us to have expeditions, to have stations. . .
The second operation aimed at mapping the Admiralty Bay, work in which I participated and choose a location for the station and deploy an Antarctic station which was modest at the time, there were only six containers. A year later, Brazil was already in the Consultative category of the Antarctic Treaty, becoming a voting member with decision-making power on the continent's environmental preservation and political future. For this, it had to prove the constancy and relevance of the scientific studies developed in Antarctica.
Currently, only 29 countries are part of this group. And to coordinate the Brazilian scientific work in Antarctica, in 1982 the PROANTAR - Brazilian Antarctic Program was created. The Brazilian Antarctic Program, unlike other countries that have Antarctic institutes, which includes all the Antarctic programs of these countries, Brazil has an interinstitutional articulation, So, we have the Brazilian Navy with the logistics part, all the part of ships leading to the Antarctic continent.
All parts of scientific research with the Ministry of Science and Technology. The environmental part is managed by the Ministry of Environment, And we have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because it is an international treaty and they conduct this political driving throughout the Brazilian Antarctic Program. So it is an interinstitutional articulation that works very well.
Global concern for the preservation of Antarctica reached a new status in 1991 with the signing of the Madrid Protocol, which was responsible for revising and supplementing the Antarctic Treaty, which was then 30 years old. The Protocol entered into force in 1998 and until 2048 it can only be amended if there is unanimous agreement of all signatories. It is a protocol for the conservation of the Antarctic environment that states in its Article 2 that Antarctica is a continent, an international nature reserve dedicated to peace and science.
So from that point on, every protocol has its Antarctic Environment Conservation Guidelines dedicated to scientific research, encouraging cooperation between countries for scientific research, and also cooperation for maintaining the Antarctic environment as it is.
