1.
Flag of Norway
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It is difficult to establish what the earliest flag of Norway looked like. During ancient times countries did not fly flags, kings and other rulers flew flags, especially in battle. Saint Olav used a serpent within a white mark at the Battle of Nesjar, prior to this the raven or dragon was used. Magnus the Good used the mark as Saint Olav. Harald Hardråde used the raven banner and this flag was flown by various Viking chieftains and other Scandinavian rulers during the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries AD. Inge used a red lion on gold, sverre used an eagle in gold and red. The earliest known flag which could be described as a flag of Norway is the one used today as the Royal Standard. Eirik Magnusson used a flag described as a lion with axe and crown on red from 1280. The flag is based on the Coat of Arms and was only a flag for the ruler of Norway. It was later used on ships and on fortresses until it was gradually phased out during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its earliest certain depiction is on the seal of duchess Ingebjørg in 1318, around 1500 it became the custom for ships to fly the flag of their home country to identify their nationality. A red flag with the lion and silver halberd is depicted as the flag of Norway in a Dutch flag book from 1669 to 1670. At least as late as 1698 the lion banner was flown over Akershus Fortress, the Norwegian lion was placed in the colours of all the Norwegian regiments in 1641. In 1748 a decree stated that the Dannebrog should be the only legal merchant flag, from about the 16th century until 1814, Norway used the same flag as Denmark, as it was in union with that country. In 1814 independent Norway adopted the Danish flag with the Norwegian lion in the canton or the square at the hoist. This flag was in use as state and war flag until 1815, the same design in a rectangular flag was introduced as an alternate merchant flag in 1818, for use in distant waters, i. e. south of Cape Finisterre in Spain. The current flag of Norway was designed in 1821 by Fredrik Meltzer and it was adopted by both chambers of the Storting on 11 May and 16 May, respectively. However, the king refused to sign the law
2.
Antarctica
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It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14,000,000 square kilometres, it is the fifth-largest continent, for comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages 1.9 km in thickness, Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is a desert, with precipitation of only 200 mm along the coast. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C, though the average for the quarter is −63 °C. Anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. The continent, however, remained neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of easily accessible resources. In 1895, the first confirmed landing was conducted by a team of Norwegians, Antarctica is a de facto condominium, governed by parties to the Antarctic Treaty System that have consulting status. Twelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, and thirty-eight have signed it since then, the treaty prohibits military activities and mineral mining, prohibits nuclear explosions and nuclear waste disposal, supports scientific research, and protects the continents ecozone. Ongoing experiments are conducted by more than 4,000 scientists from many nations, the name Antarctica is the romanised version of the Greek compound word ἀνταρκτική, feminine of ἀνταρκτικός, meaning opposite to the Arctic, opposite to the north. Aristotle wrote in his book Meteorology about an Antarctic region in c.350 B. C, marinus of Tyre reportedly used the name in his unpreserved world map from the 2nd century A. D. Before acquiring its present geographical connotations, the term was used for locations that could be defined as opposite to the north. For example, the short-lived French colony established in Brazil in the 16th century was called France Antarctique, the first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew. Antarctica has no population and there is no evidence that it was seen by humans until the 19th century. Explorer Matthew Flinders, in particular, has credited with popularising the transfer of the name Terra Australis to Australia. Cook came within about 120 km of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of ice in January 1773. The first confirmed sighting of Antarctica can be narrowed down to the crews of ships captained by three individuals, according to various organisations, ships captained by three men sighted Antarctica or its ice shelf in 1820, von Bellingshausen, Edward Bransfield, and Nathaniel Palmer
3.
Dependencies of Norway
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Norway has three dependent territories, all uninhabited and located in the Southern Hemisphere. Bouvetøya is a Subantarctic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, Queen Maud Land is a sector of Antarctica which spans between 20° west and 45° east. Peter I Island is an island located 450 kilometres off the coast of Ellsworth Land of continental Antarctica. Both Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land are south of 60°S and are part of the Antarctic Treaty System. While the treaty states that the claims are not affected by the treaty, the dependencies are administered by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security in Oslo, Norways capital. Norwegian criminal law, private law and procedural law applies to the dependencies, Norway also has two unincorporated areas which are part of Norway, not dependencies, Jan Mayen and Svalbard. The dependency status entails that the island is not part of the Kingdom of Norway, specifically, this implies that the island can be ceded without violating the first article of the Constitution of Norway. Norwegian administration of the island is handled by the Polar Affairs Department of the Ministry of Justice, the annexation of the island is regulated by the Dependency Act of 24 March 1933. It establishes that Norwegian criminal law, private law and procedural law applies to the dependencies and it further establishes that all land belongs to the state, and prohibits the storage and detonation of nuclear products. Since 5 May 1995, Norwegian law has required all Norwegian activity in Antarctica, including Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land, all Norwegian citizens who plan activities must therefore report to the Norwegian Polar Institute, who may deny any non-conforming activity. All people visiting the area must follow laws regarding protection of nature, treatment of waste, pollution and insurance for search, bouvetøya has been designated with the ISO 3166-2 code BV and was subsequently awarded the country code top-level domain. bv on 21 August 1997. On 14 December 1911 five Norwegians, under the leadership of Roald Amundsen, were the first to reach the South Pole, bouvet Island was claimed in 1927. Peter I Island was claimed in 1929, Queen Maud Land was formally claimed as a Norwegian possession on 14 January 1938. King Harald V became the first reigning monarch to visit Antarctica and he visited Queen Maud Land in 2015. Bouvetøya is an uninhabited Subantarctic volcanic island located in the end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, either in the South Atlantic Ocean or the Southern Ocean. The island has an area of 49 square kilometres, of which 93 percent is covered by a glacier, the center of the island is an ice-filled crater of an inactive volcano. Some skerries and one island, Larsøya, lie along the coast. Nyrøysa, created by a slide in the late 1950s, is the only easy place to land and is the location of a weather station
4.
New Swabia
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New Swabia was explored by Germany in early 1939 and named after that expeditions ship, the Schwabenland, itself named after the German region of Swabia. Like many other countries, Germany sent expeditions to the Antarctic region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as the 19th century ended Germany began to focus on Antarctica. The first German expedition to Antarctica was the Gauss expedition from 1901 to 1903, led by Arctic veteran and geology professor Erich von Drygalski, this was the first expedition to use a hot-air balloon in Antarctica. It also found and named Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, the second German Antarctic expedition was led by Wilhelm Filchner with a goal of crossing Antarctica to learn if it was one piece of land. As happened with such early attempts, the crossing failed before it even began. The expedition discovered and named the Luitpold Coast and the Filchner Ice Shelf, a German whaling fleet was put to sea in 1937 and, upon its successful return in early 1938, plans for a third German Antarctic expedition were drawn up. The third German Antarctic Expedition was led by Alfred Ritscher, a captain in the German Navy, the main purpose was to find an area in Antarctica for a German whaling station, as a way to increase Germany’s production of fat. Besides the disadvantage of being dependent on imports, it was thought that Germany would soon be at war, another goal was to scout possible locations for a German naval base. On 17 December 1938 the New Swabia Expedition left Hamburg for Antarctica aboard the MS Schwabenland which could also carry, the secret expedition had 33 members plus the Schwabenlands crew of 24. On 19 January 1939 the ship arrived at the Princess Martha Coast, in an area which had lately been claimed by Norway as Queen Maud Land, nazi German flags were placed on the sea ice along the coast. Seven photographic survey flights were made by the ship’s two Dornier Wal seaplanes named Passat and Boreas, eight more flights were made to areas of keen interest and on these trips some of the photos were taken with colour film. Altogether they flew over hundreds of thousands of kilometres and took more than 16,000 aerial photographs. On its return trip to Germany the expedition made oceanographic studies near Bouvet Island and Fernando de Noronha, meanwhile the Norwegian government had learned about the expedition through reports from whalers along the coast of Queen Maud Land. Because the area was first explored by a German expedition, the name Neuschwabenland is still used for the region on some maps, some geographic features mapped by the expedition were not named until the Norwegian-British-Swedish Antarctic Expedition, led by John Schjelderup Giæver. Others were not named until they were remapped from aerial photographs taken by the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, Germany made no formal territorial claims to New Swabia. No whaling station or other lasting bases were built there by Germany until the Georg-von-Neumayer-Station, germanys current Neumayer-Station III is also in the region. List of Antarctic expeditions D. T. Murphy, German exploration of the polar world
5.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
6.
Antarctic Treaty System
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For the purposes of the treaty system, Antarctica is defined as all of the land and ice shelves south of 60°S latitude. The treaty was the first arms control agreement established during the Cold War, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat headquarters have been located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, since September 2004. The main treaty was opened for signature on December 1,1959, the original signatories were the 12 countries active in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year of 1957–58. These countries had established over 50 Antarctic stations for the IGY, the treaty was a diplomatic expression of the operational and scientific cooperation that had been achieved on the ice. Pursuant to Article 1, the treaty forbids any measures of a military nature and it prohibits all activities relating to mineral resources except scientific. A sixth annex on liability arising from environmental emergencies was adopted in 2005, the Antarctic Treaty Systems yearly Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings are the international forum for the administration and management of the region. Only 29 of the 53 parties to the agreements have the right to participate in decision-making at these meetings, as of 2015, there are 53 states party to the treaty,29 of which, including all 12 original signatories to the treaty, have consultative status. Consultative members include the seven nations that claim portions of Antarctica as national territory, the 46 non-claimant nations either do not recognize the claims of others, or have not stated their positions. Note, The table can be sorted alphabetically or chronologically using the icon, ** Reserved the right to claim areas. The Antarctic Treaty Secretariat was established in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September 2004 by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, jan Huber served as the first Executive Secretary for five years until August 31,2009. He was succeeded on September 1,2009, by Manfred Reinke, facilitating the exchange of information between the Parties required in the Treaty and the Environment Protocol. Collecting, storing, arranging and publishing the documents of the ATCM, providing and disseminating public information about the Antarctic Treaty system and Antarctic activities. Antarctica currently has no permanent population and therefore it has no citizenship nor government, all personnel present on Antarctica at any time are citizens or nationals of some sovereignty outside Antarctica, as there is no Antarctic sovereignty. The majority of Antarctica is claimed by one or more countries, the area on the mainland between 90 degrees west and 150 degrees west is the only major land on Earth not claimed by any country. Until 2015 the interior of the Norwegian Sector, the extent of which had never officially defined, was considered to be unclaimed. That year, Norway formally laid claim to the area between its Queen Maud Land and the South Pole, governments that are party to the Antarctic Treaty and its Protocol on Environmental Protection implement the articles of these agreements, and decisions taken under them, through national laws. The Antarctic Treaty is often considered to represent an example of the heritage of mankind principle. According to Argentine regulations, any crime committed within 50 kilometers of any Argentine base is to be judged in Ushuaia, in the part of Argentine Antarctica that is also claimed by Chile and UK, the person to be judged can ask to be transferred there
7.
Queen Maud Land
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Queen Maud Land is a c.2.7 million-square-kilometre region of Antarctica claimed as a dependent territory by Norway. The territory lies between 20° west and 45° east, between the British Antarctic Territory to the west and the Australian Antarctic Territory to the east. On most maps there had been an area between Queen Maud Lands borders of 1939 and the South Pole until June 12,2015 when Norway formally annexed that area. Positioned in East Antarctica, the territory comprises about one-fifth of the area of Antarctica. The claim is named after the Norwegian queen Maud of Wales, Norwegian Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen was the first person known to have set foot in the territory, in 1930. On 14 January 1939, the territory was claimed by Norway, from 1939 until 1945, Nazi Germany claimed New Swabia, which consisted of part of Queen Maud Land. On 23 June 1961, Queen Maud Land became part of the Antarctic Treaty System and it is one of two Antarctic claims made by Norway, the other being Peter I Island. They are administrated by the Polar Affairs Department of the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, most of the territory is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, and a tall ice wall stretches throughout its coast. In some areas further within the ice sheet, mountain ranges breach through the ice, allowing for birds to breed, the region is divided into the Princess Martha Coast, Princess Astrid Coast, Princess Ragnhild Coast, Prince Harald Coast and Prince Olav Coast. The waters off the coast are called the King Haakon VII Sea, there is no permanent population, although there are 12 active research stations housing a maximum average of 40 scientists, the numbers fluctuating depending on the season. Six are occupied year-round, while the remainder are seasonal summer stations, the territory is estimated to cover around 2,700,000 square kilometres. The limits of the claim, put forth in 1939, did not fix the northern and southern limits other than as the beach in Antarctica. With the land lies beyond this beach and the sea beyond. The sea that extends off the coast between the limits of Queen Maud Land is generally called King Haakon VII Sea. There is no land at the coast, the coast consists of a 20-to-30-metre high wall of ice throughout almost the entire territory. It is thus possible to disembark from a ship in a few places. The other major mountain ranges are the Heimefront Range, Orvin Mountains, Wohlthat Mountains, geologically, the ground of Queen Maud Land is dominated by Precambrian gneiss, formed c.1 to 1.2 Ga, before the creation of the supercontinent Gondwana. The mountains consist mostly of crystalline and granitic rocks, formed c.500 to 600 Ma in the Pan-African orogeny during the assembly of Gondwana, in the farthest western parts of the territory, there are younger sedimentary and volcanic rocks
8.
Norwegian language
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Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as extinct languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them, as established by law and governmental policy, the two official forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål and Nynorsk. The official Norwegian Language Council is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, one and it is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as Standard Norwegian. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, no standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect. Outside Eastern Norway, this variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A2005 poll indicates that 86. 3% use primarily Bokmål as their written language,5. 5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7. 5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, examples are Setesdal, the western part of Telemark county and several municipalities in Hallingdal, Valdres, and Gudbrandsdalen. It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in rural parts of Trøndelag. Today, not only is Nynorsk the official language of four of the 19 Norwegian counties, NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all publications, and Nynorsk in 8%
9.
Territorial claims in Antarctica
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Seven states maintain a territorial claim on eight territories in Antarctica. These countries have tended to site their scientific observation and study facilities in Antarctica within the claimed territory, according to Argentina and Chile, the Spanish Empire had claims on Antarctica. The capitulación granted to the conquistador Pedro Sánchez de la Hoz explicitly included the south of the Straits of Magellan. This grant established, according to Argentina and Chile, that an animus occupandi existed on the part of Spain in Antarctica. Spains sovereignty claim over parts of Antarctica was, according to Chile and Argentina, internationally recognized with the Inter caetera bull of 1493, Argentina and Chile treat these treaties as legal international treaties mediated by the Catholic Church that was at that time a recognized arbiter in such matters. The United Kingdom reasserted sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the far South Atlantic in 1833, all these territories were administered as Falkland Islands Dependencies from Stanley by the Governor of the Falkland Islands. The motivation for this lay in the need to regulate. Commercial operators would hunt whales in areas outside the boundaries of the Falkland Islands and its dependencies. In 1917, the wording of the claim was modified, so as to include all the territory in the sector stretching to the South Pole. It was the ambition of Leopold Amery, then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in a memorandum to the governor-generals for Australia and New Zealand, he wrote that with the exception of Chile and Argentina and some barren islands belonging to France. It is desirable that the whole of the Antarctic should ultimately be included in the British Empire, the Order in Council then went on to appoint the Governor-General and Commander-in Chief of New Zealand as the Governor of the territory. In 1930, the United Kingdom claimed Enderby Land, in 1933, a British imperial order transferred territory south of 60° S and between meridians 160° E and 45° E to Australia as the Australian Antarctic Territory. Following the passing of the Statute of Westminster in 1931, the government of the United Kingdom relinquished all control over the government of New Zealand and this however had no bearing on the obligations of the Governors-General of both countries in their capacity as Governors of the Antarctic territories. Meanwhile, alarmed by these unilateral declarations, the French government laid claim to a strip of the continent in 1924. The basis for their claim to Adélie Land lay on the discovery of the coastline in 1840 by the French explorer Jules Dumont dUrville, the British eventually decided to recognize this claim and the border between Adélie Land and Australian Antarctic Territory was fixed definitively in 1938. The whale-ship owner Lars Christensen financed several expeditions to the Antarctic with the view to land for Norway. The first expedition, led by Nils Larsen and Ola Olstad, landed on Peter I Island in 1929, on 6 March 1931, a Norwegian royal proclamation declared the island under Norwegian sovereignty and on 23 March 1933 the island was declared a dependency. The 1929 expedition led by Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and Finn Lützow-Holm named the land mass near the island as Queen Maud Land
10.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
11.
British Antarctic Territory
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The British Antarctic Territory is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom as one of its 14 British Overseas Territories, of which it is by far the largest by area. It comprises the south of 60°S latitude and between longitudes 20°W and 80°W, forming a wedge shape that extends to the South Pole, overlapping the Antarctic claims of Argentina. The Territory was formed on 3 March 1962, although the UKs claim to this portion of the Antarctic dates back to Letters patent of 1908 and 1917. No new claim, or enlargement of a claim, to territorial sovereignty shall be asserted while the present Treaty is in force. Most countries do not recognise territorial claims in Antarctica, the United Kingdom has ratified the treaty. In 2012, the part of the territory was named Queen Elizabeth Land in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. The United Kingdom has had a presence in the far South Atlantic since 1833 when it reasserted sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. All these territories were administered as Falkland Islands Dependencies from Stanley by the Governor of the Falkland Islands, in 1917, the wording of the claim was modified, so as to, among other things, unambiguously include all the territory in the sector stretching to the South Pole. The United Kingdom also claimed Victoria Land in 1841 and Enderby Land in 1930, in 1943, at the height of World War II, the UK undertook a military operation known as Operation Tabarin, to provide reconnaissance and meteorological information in the South Atlantic Ocean. This secret wartime project became the civilian Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, BAS is responsible for most of the United Kingdoms scientific research in Antarctica. In the 1950s the Antarctic Treaty was negotiated to demilitarise the region and retain Antarctica – defined as all land, the treaty was passed in 1961. The Antarctic Treaty, signed by all relevant regional claimants, does not in itself either recognise or dispute any territorial claims, most of the worlds countries do not recognise any national claims to Antarctica. Australia, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom, all of whom have territorial claims on the continent, Argentina and Chile dispute the British claim, and make their own counter-claims that overlap both Britains and each others. The British Antarctic Territory includes the Antarctic Peninsula, the South Shetland Islands, South Orkney Islands and numerous offshore islands. A437, 000-square-kilometre triangle of central Antarctica converging on the South Pole was named Queen Elizabeth Land in December 2012, over 99 per cent of the territorys land surface is covered by a permanent ice sheet, up to about 5,000 metres thick. The highest peak is Mount Jackson, on the Antarctic Peninsula, there are very few plants in the British Antarctic Territories, most of them are mosses and lichens, but there are also two flowering plants, the Antarctic hairgrass and Antarctic pearlwort. Many bird species, including seven species of penguin breed in the British Antarctic Territories, the British Antarctic Territories are also home to six species of seals. The British Antarctic Territory is administered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a Commissioner is appointed and is always the Director of the FCOs Overseas Territories Directorate
12.
Australian Antarctic Territory
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The Australian Antarctic Territory is a part of Antarctica. It was claimed by the United Kingdom and placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1933 and it is the largest territory of Antarctica claimed by any nation. In 1961, the Antarctic Treaty came into force, as a result, only four other states recognise Australias claim to sovereignty in Antarctica. AAT consists of all the islands and territory south of 60°S and between 45°E and 160°E, except for Adélie Land, which divides the territory into Western AAT and it is bounded by Queen Maud Land in the West and by Ross Dependency in the East. The area is estimated at 5,896,500 km2, the territory is inhabited by the staff of research stations. The Australian Antarctic Division administers the area primarily by maintaining three year-round stations, which support research projects. Australia claims an Exclusive Economic Zone from the Australian Antarctic Territory, however, the Australian proclamation of an Antarctic EEZ is contested. The effect of Article IV of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty would seem to be that an EEZ cannot be claimed in relation to territory to which that Treaty applies, whaling in Australian Antarctic territorial waters is controversial and has received international attention. Anti-whaling protest groups, in particular Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, have been active within the Australian Antarctic territorial waters. Sea Shepherd small boat crews have had encounters with Japanese ships that claim to be on research expeditions while opponents argue this is only a cover for banned commercial whaling. The Australian Whale Sanctuary, in Australian Antarctic territory, is not recognised by the government of Japan, anti-whaling legislation passed by the Australian Government applies to Australian territorial waters. Active and closed stations in the territory, from West to East, The United Kingdom first claimed Victoria Land on 9 January 1841, in 1933, a British imperial order transferred most of the territory south of 60° S and between meridians 160° E and 45° E to Australia. C2004C00416 / Australian Antarctic Territory Acceptance Act 1933 The borders with Adélie Land were fixed definitively in 1938, in 1947, Britain transferred Heard Island and McDonald Islands to the territory. On 13 February 1954, Mawson Station was established as the first Australian station on the continent proper, Australias claim to sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory is recognised by the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and Norway. Neither Japan nor Spain recognise this claim, and Japan does not recognise the Australian claim to the Australian Antarctic territorial waters in which Japanese ships conduct whaling, during the early 1980s there was a brief debate in Australia on whether or not to allow mining on the mineral-rich continent. Several mining proposals have been discussed and have all been rejected, on the 9 August 2011, influential Australian think-tank, the Lowy Institute, published a report warning Canberra against complacency when it comes to its claim. The global treaty banning resource exploitation becomes reviewable in 2041, and these include coal seams, manganese, iron and uranium, while Antarcticas forecast oil reserves are estimated as among the largest in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Lowys national security fellow Ellie Fogarty said in the paper that Australia cannot adequately patrol its claim and it also lacks an ice-breaking ship in the region
13.
East Antarctica
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It lies almost entirely within the Eastern Hemisphere and its name has been accepted for more than a century. It is generally higher than West Antarctica and includes the Gamburtsev Mountain Range in the centre, apart from small areas of the coast, East Antarctica is permanently covered by ice. The only terrestrial plant life is lichens, mosses and algae clinging to rocks, the coasts are the breeding ground for various seabirds and penguins, and the leopard seal, Weddell seal, elephant seal, crabeater seal and Ross seal breed on the surrounding pack ice in summer. Almost completely covered in thick, permanent ice, East Antarctica comprises Coats Land, Queen Maud Land, Enderby Land, Kemp Land, Mac. Robertson Land, Princess Elizabeth Land, Wilhelm II Land, Queen Mary Land, Wilkes Land, Adélie Land, George V Land, Oates Land, all but a small portion of this region lies within the Eastern Hemisphere, a fact that has suggested the name. The name was approved in the United States by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names in 1962, East Antarctica is generally higher than West Antarctica, and is considered the coldest place on Earth. There are no trees or shrubs, as very limited plant life can survive here, the flora consists of lichens, moss, and algae that are adapted to the cold and wind. The coasts are home to seabirds, penguins, and seals, which feed in the ocean, including the emperor penguin. Seabirds of the coast include southern fulmar, the southern giant petrel, Cape petrel, snow petrel, the small Wilsons storm-petrel, the large south polar skua. The seals of the Antarctic Ocean include leopard seal, Weddell seal, there are no large land animals but bacteria, nematodes, springtails, mites, and midges live on the mosses and lichens. The remote and extremely cold bulk of Antarctica remains almost entirely untouched by human intervention, East Antarctic craton Polar plateau This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document East Antarctica. World Wildlife Fund, C. M. Hogan, S. Draggan, marielandia Antarctic tundra. in C. J. Cleveland, ed. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and the Environment, Washington, DC
14.
Maud of Wales
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Maud of Wales, GCVO, GCStJ, VA, CI was Queen of Norway as spouse of King Haakon VII. She was the youngest daughter of the British king Edward VII, Maud of Wales was the first queen of Norway since 1380 who was not also queen of Denmark or Sweden. Maud was born on 26 November 1869 at Marlborough House, London and she was the third daughter and fifth child of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Victoria, and Princess Alexandra of Denmark. She was christened Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria at Marlborough House by John Jackson, Maud had a relatively happy childhood compared to her siblings, who found their upbringing oppressive and stifled. Her fathers favourite child, she was high-spirited and enjoyed riding, the tomboyish Maud was known as Harry to the royal family, after Edward VIIs friend Admiral Henry Keppel, whose conduct in the Crimean War was considered particularly courageous at the time. Maud took part in almost all the visits to the Princess of Waless family in Denmark and later accompanied her mother and sisters on cruises to Norway. She was a bridesmaid at the 1885 wedding of her paternal aunt Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg, Maud, along with her sisters, Victoria and Louise, received the Imperial Order of the Crown of India from Queen Victoria on 6 August 1887. Like her sisters, she held the Royal Order of Victoria. Maud married relatively late, waiting until her twenties to find a husband. She had initially wanted to marry Prince Francis of Teck, elder brother of her sister-in-law Mary, despite being relatively impoverished from mounting gambling debts and being in a position to possibly benefit from Mauds status, he ignored her advances. On 22 July 1896, Princess Maud married her first cousin, Prince Carl of Denmark, Prince Carl was the second son of Queen Alexandras elder brother, Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, and Princess Louise of Sweden. The brides father gave her Appleton House on the Sandringham Estate as a residence for her frequent visits to England. It was there that the only child, Prince Alexander, was born on 2 July 1903. Prince Carl was an officer in the Danish navy and he, in June 1905 the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, dissolved Norways 91-year-old union with Sweden and voted to offer the throne to Prince Carl. Mauds membership of the British royal house had some part in why Carl was chosen, following a plebiscite in November, Prince Carl accepted the Norwegian throne, taking the name of Haakon VII, while his young son took the name of Olav. King Haakon VII and Queen Maud were crowned at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on 22 June 1906, Queen Maud never lost her love of Britain, but she quickly adapted to her new country and duties as a queen consort. Maud played a strong and dominant role within the court and family and she disliked representation but performed her role as a queen with great care, and used clothes and jewelry to make a regal impression. She supported charitable causes, particularly associated with children and animals
15.
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen
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Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen was a Norwegian aviation pioneer, polar explorer and businessman. Among his achievements, he is regarded as the founder of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. Riiser-Larsen was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1890, in 1909, aged nineteen, he joined the Norwegian Naval Academy and in 1915 the newly formed Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service. After World War I, he served as the head of the RNoNASs factory until a more senior officer was appointed. In 1921, he joined the Aviation Council, then part of the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and this gave him the opportunity to study the fledgling military and civil aviation infrastructure for which the Council was responsible. He also became a frequent pilot on the air used by the new aviation companies. Riiser-Larsens years of exploration began in 1925 when his compatriot Roald Amundsen. Riiser-Larsen agreed and secured the use of two Dornier Do J Wal seaplanes, the expedition, however, was forced to land close to the Pole, badly damaging one of the planes. Riiser-Larsen somehow managed to coax the overloaded plane into the air, the following year, Riiser-Larsen rejoined Amundsen for another attempt to fly over the Pole, this time with Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile in his recently renamed airship, the Norge. Leaving Spitsbergen on 11 May 1926, the Norge completed the two days later, landing near Teller, Alaska. Riiser-Larsen also became involved in a search for Amundsen, when he as passenger in a French naval flyingboat went missing while he was en route to join the search for Nobile, eventually Nobile and most of his team were found, but Amundsen was not. The Norvegia expeditions were a sequence of Antarctic expeditions financed by the Norwegian shipowner, by the end of the second expedition, two small islands in the Southern Ocean, Bouvet Island and Peter I Island, had been annexed. In 1929 Christensen decided to include aeroplanes in the next expedition, Riiser-Larsen then supervised and took part in mapping most of the Antarctic in this and three further expeditions. More territory was annexed, this time the large area of the continent known as Queen Maud Land. In 1939, the Norwegian military was downsized and Riiser-Larssen was among those officers finding themselves out of work, however, he was quickly offered a new job by the shipping company Fred. Olsen & Co. as manager of its newly formed airline and he invited some former naval pilots to join the airline and soon made it the most successful in Norway. In 1946, DNL would be one of the four Scandinavian airlines merged to create the present-day Scandinavian Airlines System, when Nazi Germany invaded Norway in 1940, Riiser-Larsen rejoined the Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service. However, both the Norwegian Army and Royal Norwegian Navy Air Services were quickly overwhelmed by the Wehrmacht before he saw combat, by the end of the war, however, many of the pilots under his command had become critical of his leadership
16.
Demilitarized zone
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A demilitarized zone, DMZ or DZ is an area in which treaties or agreements between nations, military powers or contending groups forbid military installations, activities or personnel. A DMZ often lies along an established frontier or boundary between two or more powers or alliances. A DMZ may sometimes form a de facto border, such as the 38th parallel between North and South Korea. Other examples of demilitarized zones are a 120-mile area between Iraq and Kuwait, Antarctica and outer space, many demilitarized zones are considered neutral territory because neither side is allowed to control it, even for non-combat administration. Some zones remain demilitarized after an agreement has awarded control to a state which had ceded its right to maintain military forces in the disputed territory. Several demilitarized zones have also unintentionally become wildlife preserves because their land is unsafe for construction or less exposed to human disturbances, examples include the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone, and the Green Line in Cyprus. Aegean Islands – The Greek islands of Chios, Icaria, Mytilene, the Treaty forbids all naval fortifications and bases and stipulates that military forces on the islands be limited to the normal contingent called up for military service. The Treaty does however provide for the use of personnel or equipment for scientific research or for any other peaceful purpose. Ceuta border fence and Melilla border fence – A de facto demilitarized zone exists between the Spanish territories of Ceuta and Melilla and Morocco, perimeter fences around both cities have been constructed by Spanish and Moroccan authorities, creating a demilitarized zone between the Spanish and Moroccan fences. Ground Safety Zone – A5 km -wide demilitarized area between Serbia and Kosovo was created under the Kumanovo Agreement following the Kosovo War, Korean Demilitarized Zone – The Korean Armistice Agreement created a 4 km -wide demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea following the Korean War. It is currently the most heavily guarded area in the world, kuwait–Iraq barrier – The United Nations Security Council approved the creation of a demilitarized zone between Iraq and Kuwait in Resolution 689. Although the demilitarized zone is no longer mandated by the Council, preah Vihear Temple – The International Court of Justice had ordered the creation of a provisional demilitarized zone around the Temple whose ownership is claimed by both Cambodia and Thailand. Sinai Peninsula – The Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty sets a limit to the amount of forces Egypt can place in the Sinai Peninsula, parts of the peninsula are demilitarized to various degrees, especially within 20–40 kilometres of Israel. Israel also agreed to limit its forces within 3 kilometres of the Egyptian border, the areas are monitored by the Multinational Force and Observers. Because of the Sinai insurgency all sides agreed and encouraged Egypt to send large amounts of forces into the area, including tanks and helicopters. Svalbard – The Svalbard Treaty of 1920, which recognized Norwegian sovereignty over the territory, Sudan – A10 km demilitarized zone along the Sudan – South Sudan border. It was authorized by Resolution 186 and is patrolled by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, the zone is monitored by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force. A neutral territory was established between the British territory of Gibraltar and Spain after the end of the 1727 siege
17.
Peter I Island
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Peter I Island is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Bellingshausen Sea,450 kilometres from Antarctica. It is claimed as a dependency of Norway, and along with Queen Maud Land, Peter I Island is 11 by 19 kilometres long and 156 square kilometres, slightly larger than Staten Island. The tallest peak is the ultra and 1, 640-meter tall Lars Christensen Peak, nearly all of the island is covered by a glacier and it is surrounded most of the year by pack ice, making it inaccessible almost all year round. There is little life on the island apart from seabirds and seals, the island was first sighted by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen on 21 January 1821 and was named for Peter I of Russia. Since then, the sovereignty over the island belongs to the tsar, not until 2 February 1929 did anyone set foot on the island, when Nils Larsen and Ola Olstads Second Norvegia Expedition, financed by Lars Christensen, was successful. They claimed it for Norway, who annexed it in 1931, the next landing occurred in 1948 and the island has been subject to some scientific research and a limited amount of tourism. The island became subject to the Antarctic Treaty in 1961, since 1987, there has been an automated meteorological station on the island. Three amateur radio DX-peditions have visited the island and there are sporadic landings by tourists, the first sighting of Peter I Island was made on 21 January 1821 by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausens expedition, who commanded the ships Vostok and Mirnyy under the Russian flag. He named the island for Tsar Peter I the Great of Russia, drift ice made it impossible for Bellinghausen to come nearer than 25 kilometers from the island. It was the first land to have been spotted south of the Antarctic Circle, in 1926 and 1927, Norwegian Eyvind Tofte circumnavigated and surveyed the island from Odd I. However, he was prevented from landing. The Norwegian whale-ship owner Lars Christensen financed several expeditions to the Antarctic, in part for research, the first expedition to land on the island was the Christensen-financed second Norvegia expedition, led by Nils Larsen and Ola Olstad. They landed on 2 February 1929 and claimed the island for Norway, Larsen attempted to land again in 1931, but was hindered by pack ice. On 6 March 1931, a Norwegian royal proclamation declared the island under Norwegian sovereignty, the next landing occurred on 10 February 1948 by Larsens ship Brategg. Biological, geological and hydrographic surveys underwent for three days, before the ice forced the expedition to leave. The expedition built a hut and placed a copy of the document of occupation from 1929 inside, on 23 June 1961, Peter I Island became subject to the Antarctic Treaty, after Norways signing of the treaty in 1959. Since then, there have been several landings on the island by various nations for scientific investigations, in 1987, the Norwegian Polar Institute sent five scientists to spend eleven days on the island. The main focuses were aerial photography and topographical measurements to allow an accurate map of the island to be produced, the second important area was marine biological investigations, although also geological, biological and other surveys were conducted
18.
Oslo
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Oslo is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality, founded in the year 1040, and established as a kaupstad or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada, the city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814, after being destroyed by a fire in 1624, the city was moved closer to Akershus Fortress during the reign of Christian IV of Denmark and renamed Christiania in his honour. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838, following a spelling reform, it was known as Kristiania from 1877 to 1925, at which time its original Norwegian name was restored. Oslo is the economic and governmental centre of Norway, the city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It is an important centre for industries and maritime trade in Europe. The city is home to companies within the maritime sector, some of which are among the worlds largest shipping companies, shipbrokers. Oslo is a city of the Council of Europe and the European Commission intercultural cities programme. Oslo is considered a city and ranked Beta World City in studies carried out by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group. It was ranked one in terms of quality of life among European large cities in the European Cities of the Future 2012 report by fDi magazine. A survey conducted by ECA International in 2011 placed Oslo as the second most expensive city in the world for living expenses after Tokyo. In 2013 Oslo tied with the Australian city of Melbourne as the fourth most expensive city in the world, as of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, while the population of the citys urban area was 942,084. The metropolitan area had an population of 1.71 million. The population was during the early 2000 increasing at record rates and this growth stems for the most part from international immigration and related high birth rates, but also from intra-national migration. The immigrant population in the city is growing faster than the Norwegian population. As of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, the urban area extends beyond the boundaries of the municipality into the surrounding county of Akershus, the total population of this agglomeration is 942,084. To the north and east, wide forested hills rise above the city giving the location the shape of a giant amphitheatre. The urban municipality of Oslo and county of Oslo are two parts of the entity, making Oslo the only city in Norway where two administrative levels are integrated
19.
Antarctic ice sheet
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The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth and it covers an area of almost 14 million square kilometres and contains 26.5 million cubic kilometres of ice. That is, approximately 61 percent of all water on the Earth is held in the Antarctic ice sheet. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a land mass. Much of the land in this area would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there, in contrast to the melting of the Arctic sea ice, sea ice around Antarctica was expanding as of 2013. CO2 levels were then about 760 ppm and had been decreasing from earlier levels in the thousands of ppm, carbon dioxide decrease, with a tipping point of 600 ppm, was the primary agent forcing Antarctic glaciation. The opening of the Drake Passage may have played a role as well though models of the changes suggest declining CO2 levels to have more important. According to a 2009 study, the average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive. West Antarctica has warmed by more than 0.1 °C/decade in the last 50 years, although this is partly offset by fall cooling in East Antarctica, this effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s. Ice enters the sheet through precipitation as snow and this snow is then compacted to form glacier ice which moves under gravity towards the coast. Most of it is carried to the coast by fast moving ice streams, the ice then passes into the ocean, often forming vast floating ice shelves. These shelves then melt or calve off to give icebergs that eventually melt, if the transfer of the ice from the land to the sea is balanced by snow falling back on the land then there will be no net contribution to global sea levels. A2006 paper derived from data, measures changes in the gravity of the ice mass. A2008 study compared the ice leaving the ice sheet, by measuring the ice velocity and thickness along the coast and this found that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was in balance but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was losing mass. This was largely due to acceleration of ice streams such as Pine Island Glacier and these results agree closely with the gravity changes. The mass loss was geographically uneven, mainly occurring along the Amundsen Sea coast, while the West Antarctic Ice Sheet mass was roughly constant, Antarctic sea ice anomalies have roughly followed the pattern of warming, with the greatest declines occurring off the coast of West Antarctica. East Antarctica sea ice has been increasing since 1978, though not at a significant rate. The atmospheric warming has been linked to the mass losses in West Antarctica of the first decade of the twenty-first century
20.
Antarctic flora
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The Antarctic flora is a distinct community of vascular plants which evolved millions of years ago on the supercontinent of Gondwana. It is now found on several areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including southern South America, southernmost Africa, New Zealand, Australia. Millions of years ago, Antarctica was warmer and much wetter and was able to support the Antarctic flora, including forests of podocarps, Antarctica was also part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which gradually broke up by plate tectonics starting 110 million years ago. The separation of South America from Antarctica 30–35 million years ago allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to form, the Antarctic flora subsequently died out in Antarctica, but is still an important component of the flora of southern Neotropic and Australasia, which were also former parts of Gondwana. Some genera which originated in Antarctic Flora are still recognized as major components of New Caledonia, Tasmania, Madagascar, India, New Zealand, and southern South America. South America, Madagascar, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica were all part of the supercontinent Gondwana, India was the first to break away, followed by Africa, and then New Zealand, which started to drift north. By the end of the Cretaceous, South America and Australia were still joined to Antarctica, a drier northern Gondwanan flora had developed in northern South America and northern Africa. Africa and India drifted north into the tropical latitudes, became hotter and drier, today, the flora of Africa and India have few remnants of the Antarctic flora. Many other families of flowering plants and ferns, including the tree fern Dicksonia, are characteristic of the Antarctic flora and it is suggested a paleobotanical habitat similar to the extant cool temperate Valdivian rainforests. There are two conifer and at least seven angiosperm morphotypes recorded in the Antarctica palaeoflora, conifers include Cupressinoxylon, which is the more common, and Podocarpoxylon. The angiosperm component includes two species of Nothofagoxylon, one species of Myrceugenelloxylon, and one species of Weinmannioxylon, two other species are assigned to genera Hedycaryoxylon and Atherospermoxylon. The continent of Antarctica itself has been too cold and dry to support virtually any vascular plants for millions of years, antarcticas extant flora presently consists of around 250 lichens,100 mosses, 25-30 liverworts, and around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algal species. Two flowering plants, Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis, are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, species of moss endemic to Antarctica include Grimmia antarctici, Schistidium antarctici, and Sarconeurum glaciale Cox, C. Biogeography, An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach
21.
King Haakon VII Sea
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King Haakon VII Sea is a proposed name for part of the Southern Ocean on the coast of East Antarctica. The International Hydrographic Organization, often recognized as the authority for water body names, does not include this sea name. The IHO2002 draft was never approved by the IHO, most leading geographic authorities and atlases do not use the name, including the 2014 10th edition World Atlas from the National Geographic Society. The water here is covered by ice most of the year, during autum pack ice forms which does not break up until spring. The rough coordinates of the sea area would be 67°00′S 20°00′E. The area is an important habitat for the Ross seal, on 27 January 1820 Russian Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen made the first confirmed sighting of Terra Australis as he was cruising this area near the Fimbul Ice Shelf at Princess Märtha Coast. The area is named in honour of Haakon VII, the first king of Norway after the dissolution from Sweden, picture from the King Haakon VII Sea Overview map of the area from NASA
22.
Cape Town
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Cape Town is a coastal city in South Africa. It is the second-most populous urban area in South Africa after Johannesburg and it is also the capital and primate city of the Western Cape province. As the seat of the Parliament of South Africa, it is also the capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality, the city is famous for its harbour, for its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region, and for such well-known landmarks as Table Mountain and Cape Point. As of 2014, it is the 10th most populous city in Africa and it is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, reflecting its role as a major destination for immigrants and expatriates to South Africa. The city was named the World Design Capital for 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, in 2014, Cape Town was named the best place in the world to visit by both the American New York Times and the British Daily Telegraph. Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town was first developed by the Dutch East India Company as a station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa, India. Jan van Riebeecks arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa, Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in South Africa, the earliest known remnants in the region were found at Peers Cave in Fish Hoek and date to between 15,000 and 12,000 years ago. It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as Cape of Good Hope because of the optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to India. Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497, in the late 16th century, Portuguese, French, Danish, Dutch and English but mainly Portuguese ships regularly stopped over in Table Bay en route to the Indies. They traded tobacco, copper and iron with the Khoikhoi in exchange for fresh meat, the settlement grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labour. This labour shortage prompted the authorities to import slaves from Indonesia, many of these became ancestors of the first Cape Coloured communities. Some of these, including grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, had an important, the Dutch Republic being transformed in Revolutionary Frances vassal Batavian Republic, Great Britain moved to take control of its colonies. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795, but the Cape was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803, British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814, Cape Town was permanently ceded to Britain and it became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony, whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s. With expansion came calls for independence from Britain, with the Cape attaining its own parliament. Suffrage was established according to the non-racial, but sexist Cape Qualified Franchise, the discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, prompted a flood of immigrants to South Africa
23.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
24.
Troll (research station)
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Troll is a research station located at Jutulsessen,235 kilometers from the coast in the eastern part of Princess Martha Coast in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. It is Norways only all-year research station in Antarctica, and is supplemented by the summer-only station Tor, Troll is operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute and also features facilities for the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the Norwegian Institute for Air Research. The station opened as a station in 1990 and was taken into use as an all-year station in 2005. It has a capacity of eight people and a summer capacity of 40. It is served by Troll Airfield, which is the base for the Dronning Maud Land Air Network, Troll is located in the eastern part of Princess Martha Coast in Queen Maud Land, which Norway claims as a dependent territory. The station is located on the bare ground area Jutulsessen. It is completely surrounded by the Antarctic ice sheet and this is unlike most other Antarctic research stations, which are located on snow. Troll is 235 kilometers from the coast, the station facilities are owned by the Government of Norway through the Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property. Operation of the facility is done by government agency, the Norwegian Polar Institute. The facilities consist of a new section that is 300 square meters. The new section consists of eight bedrooms, a gym, a sauna, a kitchen, in addition, there are several smaller buildings which are used as laboratories, provision stores, generators and garages. The old station is used partially for storage and partially as a summer station, the facility also features an emergency facility for eight people, located at a safe distance from the main base, in case of fire or other accidents. The station is dimensioned to tolerate temperatures down to −60 °C, the facility attempts to minimize its environmental impact through several mechanisms, including minimizing area usage. Energy consumption is reduced by using recirculating excess heat to melt snow and ice for drinking water, waste is minimized through purchase planning and recycling, the remaining waste is compressed and transported away from the Antarctic. Fuel is handled in such a way that even small spills are minimized, in 2016 a solar PV plant with 7.3 kilowatt peak has been installed on one of the roof tops. It serves as an installation for the declared middle term target of reducing the oil consumption of the research station significantly. The station has a cold and dry climate, being located in a desert, the annual mean temperature is −25 °C, with the summer temperature able to reach about 0 °C and the lowest during the winter at −50 °C. Storms, which can occur throughout the year, can make outdoor activity impossible
25.
Novolazarevskaya Station
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Novolazarevskaya Station is a Russian, formerly Soviet, Antarctic research station. The station is located at Schirmacher Oasis, Queen Maud Land,75 km from the Antarctic coast and it was opened on January 18,1961 by the 6th Soviet Antarctic Expedition. The maximum summer population is 70, Novolazarevskaya has an airstrip that serves both research-related and commercial flights. In 2010 GLONASS differential reference station started to work in Novolazarevskaya, the reference station also provides Internet to Novolazarevsklaya personnel
26.
Sea level
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Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
27.
Precambrian
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The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
28.
Gneiss
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Gneiss is a common distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks. The foliations are characterized by alternating darker and lighter colored bands, the word gneiss comes from the Middle High German verb gneist. It has occurred in English since at least 1757, gneissic rocks are usually medium- to coarse-foliated, they are largely recrystallized but do not carry large quantities of micas, chlorite or other platy minerals. Gneisses that are metamorphosed igneous rocks or their equivalent are termed granite gneisses, diorite gneisses, gneiss rocks may also be named after a characteristic component such as garnet gneiss, biotite gneiss, albite gneiss, etc. Orthogneiss designates a gneiss derived from a rock, and paragneiss is one from a sedimentary rock. Gneissose rocks have properties similar to gneiss, gneiss appears to be striped in bands, called gneissic banding. The banding is developed under high temperature and pressure conditions, the minerals are arranged into layers that appear as bands in cross section. The appearance of layers, called compositional banding, occurs because the layers, the darker bands have relatively more mafic minerals. The lighter bands contain relatively more felsic and these forces stretch out the rock like a plastic, and the original material is spread out into sheets. Another cause of banding is metamorphic differentiation, which separates different materials into different layers through chemical reactions, not all gneiss rocks have detectable banding. In kyanite gneiss, crystals of kyanite appear as random clumps in what is mainly a plagioclase matrix, henderson gneiss is found in North Carolina and South Carolina, US, east of the Brevard Shear Zone. It has deformed into two sequential forms, the second, more warped, form is associated with the Brevard Fault, and the first deformation results from displacement to the southwest. Most of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland have a formed from Lewisian gneiss. In addition to the Outer Hebrides, they form basement deposits on the Scottish mainland west of the Moine Thrust and on the islands of Coll and Tiree. These rocks are igneous in origin, mixed with metamorphosed marble, quartzite and mica schist with later intrusions of basaltic dikes. Gneisses of Archean and Proterozoic age occur in the Baltic Shield, in antiquity, gneisses were also utilized in architectural construction. They were used to erect the Sphinx of Taharqo in the Nile Valley, list of rock types Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy. Petrology, Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic, 2nd ed. Freeman, mcKirdy, Alan, Roger Crofts and John Gordon
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Year
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A year is the orbital period of the Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earths axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by changes in weather, the hours of daylight, and, consequently, vegetation and soil fertility. In temperate and subpolar regions around the globe, four seasons are recognized, spring, summer, autumn. In tropical and subtropical regions several geographical sectors do not present defined seasons, but in the seasonal tropics, a calendar year is an approximation of the number of days of the Earths orbital period as counted in a given calendar. The Gregorian, or modern, calendar, presents its calendar year to be either a common year of 365 days or a year of 366 days, as do the Julian calendars. For the Gregorian calendar the average length of the year across the complete leap cycle of 400 years is 365.2425 days. The ISO standard ISO 80000-3, Annex C, supports the symbol a to represent a year of either 365 or 366 days, in English, the abbreviations y and yr are commonly used. In astronomy, the Julian year is a unit of time, it is defined as 365.25 days of exactly 86400 seconds, totalling exactly 31557600 seconds in the Julian astronomical year. The word year is used for periods loosely associated with, but not identical to, the calendar or astronomical year, such as the seasonal year, the fiscal year. Similarly, year can mean the period of any planet, for example. The term can also be used in reference to any long period or cycle, west Saxon ġēar, Anglian ġēr continues Proto-Germanic *jǣran. Cognates are German Jahr, Old High German jār, Old Norse ár and Gothic jer, all the descendants of the Proto-Indo-European noun *yeh₁rom year, season. Cognates also descended from the same Proto-Indo-European noun are Avestan yārǝ year, Greek ὥρα year, season, period of time, Old Church Slavonic jarŭ, Latin annus is from a PIE noun *h₂et-no-, which also yielded Gothic aþn year. Both *yeh₁-ro- and *h₂et-no- are based on verbal roots expressing movement, *h₁ey- and *h₂et- respectively, the Greek word for year, ἔτος, is cognate with Latin vetus old, from the PIE word *wetos- year, also preserved in this meaning in Sanskrit vat-sa- yearling and vat-sa-ras year. Derived from Latin annus are a number of English words, such as annual, annuity, anniversary, etc. per annum means each year, anno Domini means in the year of the Lord. No astronomical year has an number of days or lunar months. Financial and scientific calculations often use a 365-day calendar to simplify daily rates, in the Julian calendar, the average length of a year is 365.25 days. In a non-leap year, there are 365 days, in a year there are 366 days
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