Shamus

WHAT MINERALS ARE THERE IN ANTARCTICA? There is: Gold = AU Silver = AG Manganese = MN Cobalt = CO Copper = CU Chromium = CR Nickel = NI Iron = FE Molybdenum = MB Lead = PB Titanium = TI Uranium = U Zinc = ZN Coal <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Oil <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">None of these minerals can be mined away because of the Antarctic treaty and countries can’t go there unless that county has signed the treaty.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">WHAT PLANTS AND ANIMALS ARE THERE IN ANTARCTICA? <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">There are 350 species of vegetation in Antarctica. It is mostly lichen, mosses and algae. There are no full time land based animals in Antarctica. However, there are animals that live in Antarctica full time but these species are dependent on the sea for food and sometimes for their young. There are some small insects that live on the land full time. Some animals do not live in Antarctica all year round, these animals leave when it is winter in Antarctica.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">WHY IS ANTARCTICA CONSIDERED A DESERT? <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">To be considered a desert the location must have less than 254mm of rainfall each year. In one year Antarctica gets an average of 50mm, which is equivalent to the average snowfall each year.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">HOW DID ANTARCTICA FORM? <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Scientists believe that many millions of years ago, all the land in the world formed one single continent, called Pangea. The earth’s surface is like a puzzle with pieces called tectonic plates. These plates broke apart millions of years ago and moved the continents to their current position. This is known as the continental drift theory. The original massive continent broke up somewhere between 2 hundred million and two hundred and 45 million years ago. The southern part of this continent, was called Gondwanaland. About 180 million years ago, Gondwanaland started breaking apart too. Today this is still happening and will continue to happen for very long time. This is how the current land shapes were formed. During this time, Antarctica was one of these pieces and moved to where it is over the South Pole. <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">media type="custom" key="19358230"

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">HOW BIG IS ANTARCTICA? <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Antarctica is the fifth largest continent in the world. The total surface of Antarctica is about 14.2 million km squared in summer. This is about twice the size of Australia. However in winter this number doubles and when summer comes back around the ice melts causing the continent to shrink again.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">SHOULD TOURISTS BE ALLOWED IN ANTARCTICA? <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 130%;">Tourism should be allowed in Antarctica but it must be very strict to not let people harm the environment in Antarctica at all. Some of the rules currently in place in Antarctica include never going within 5 meters of any Antarctic animal. Another rule is that people are not allowed to bring any food with them on shore because it may be poisonous to some animals.