Antarctica is the mysterious continent of penguins and white deserts of eternal ice, the last of the open continents and today poorly studied and lurking unsolved secrets. Volcanoes of Antarctica - one of such secrets, which is in no hurry to open.
Hidden by the thickness of ice
Active and extinct, surface and underwater - today the catalog of volcanoes of the mainland of Antarctica has about 35 on land, and at least 18 of them are active. The last of them was discovered in 2008, it is hidden under a layer of ice and is located near Pine Island Bay in the Hudson Mountains. It was discovered when probing the ice cover from the air, but how many have not yet been discovered?
First but not last
Question "Are there volcanoes in Antarctica?" lost its relevance back in 1841, when the James Ross expedition saw two volcanoes - the active Erebus and the extinct Terror (named after the ships of the expedition). Since then, the study of volcanoes and new discoveries began. So, in 2010, there were reports of the discovery of a whole chain of 12 submarine volcanoes of Antarctica. With the help of sonars, it was found that the height of some reaches 3 kilometers. Seven of them are active, and under the water there is a funnel of an extinct volcano with a diameter of up to 5 kilometers.
Volcano Erebus
The southernmost of all active volcanoes of the planet - Erebus - has a height of almost 4 thousand meters above sea level and a crater in diameter 805 meters with a depth of 274 meters. This is one of the three volcanoes of the planet, in the bowels of which is a volcanic inexhaustible lake with lava. This is what gives Erebus a peculiar glow, which has become a beacon for all sailors of the Ross Sea. The last of 8 in a hundred years, a major eruption was in 1972, when lava was thrown to the height of an eight-story building.
Conquering Erebus is a matter of honor
For researchers of Antarctica, climbing this dangerous volcano has become almost an obsession. The first to conquer him in 1908 was the expedition team of Professor Ernest Shackleton, who was 50 years old. It was these researchers who first saw the lava lake in the crater.
Geologists from New Zealand camped in the main crater in 1974, but the activity of the volcano did not allow them to explore the inner crater. And although the path to the volcano is blocked by multiple ice peaks, every year extreme researchers flock to it.
Volcano Reception
In the middle of the Shetlan Islands, 850 kilometers south-east of the Cape forge is the culprit of the emergence of Port Foster Bay. It is this active volcano that is considered responsible for the largest known eruption. The volcano was discovered in 1820 by Captain William Smith, and in the 1960s a joint station of Great Britain, Chile and Argentina appeared here. Between 1967-1969, as a result of several eruptions, the stations of Chile and Great Britain were destroyed. Only Argentines remained, to which the Spaniards joined in 2000.
Mysterious Reception
This is a rare "ice volcano" that is located under a glacier with a thickness of up to 100 meters. His lava moves slowly and a huge amount of dirt comes to the surface. Volcanologists are still not completely sure of the origin of the volcano - either it is a rift volcano (divergence of the crust), or it is formed by subduction (immersion of one crust under another) of tectonic plates.
Mount Sidley
Mary Bird Land contains a chain of volcanic mountains within the ridge of the Executive Committee (Executive Committee Range). The height of Mount Sidley is about 4.3 thousand meters, the foot is 2.5 thousand meters. One side of the mountain forms a caldera of a volcanic crater with a diameter of 5 kilometers. The thickness of the ice cover reaches 2 kilometers, and if the ice melts, a second Japan will appear here in the form of an archipelago of islands of volcanic origin.
Volcanoes of Antarctica and the future of the planet
According to Nature Geoscience, volcanic activity affects the rate of ice melting. The heat flow from the volcanoes of Antarctica, passing through the earth's crust, causes instability of the ice shell of the mainland. Scientists have already modeled a map of the planet after the predicted melting of the ice of Antarctica. And it does not have much of North America and the coastal regions of India. London and Venice, the Netherlands and Denmark will completely go under water. Among the countries that will suffer, Russia is not.
Antarctic fantasies
In 2017, press reports appeared about NASA's activity in the crater of Erebus volcano to search for a portal to other worlds or traces of aliens. Now everyone knows which volcano is in Antarctica.
The huge two-meter letter “M” on one of the islands has long been a mystery. But it turned out that in this way one Polish researcher immortalized the name of the lady of his heart Magda. True, the material chosen is interesting - these are penguin excrement.
Two peaks of the rock at the entrance to the Lemer canal are named very peculiarly - "Tits of the Una." In the British expedition, there really was a girl, Una. It’s interesting, because some volcanoes are nameless even today.
Antarctica has many icy freshwater lakes. According to some reports, there are about 140 of them. And the largest is the East. Its width is 50 kilometers and its length is 250.
But a bloody waterfall flows from the Taylor Glacier. This phenomenon is explained by the activity of bacteria in the ice lake. They secrete divalent iron, which in the air dyes water in an ominous color.
To the disappointment of many, there are no polar bears in Antarctica. There are only marine predators - killer whales and ice sharks. That is why penguins on land are so bold.
Antarctica has 5 polar stations in Russia. The largest - "East" - is located in the area of the geodetic South Pole.