DOCSLIB.ORG

Quest for the South Magnetic Pole Teachers

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Quest for the South Magnetic Pole Teachers Quest for the South Magnetic Pole Teachers Kit 1 Contents Fact sheet # 1 Why are there so many poles?..................................................3 Fact sheet # 2 Why were people interested in finding the South Magnetic Pole?..............................................................................6 Fact sheet #3 Why is the Magnetic Pole continually moving?.......................8 Fact sheet #4 Timeline of Antarctic exploration………………………………………..10 Fact sheet #5 Whose who of Antarctic exploration – Test your knowledge………………………………………………………………………………….16 Fact sheet #6 Survival in a frozen land…………………………………………………………19 Fact sheet # 7 Australia’s Antarctic involvement……………………………………….25 Fact sheet # 8 Magnetism on Earth……………………………………………………………… 35 Fact sheet # 17 Dogs………………………………………………………………………………………….37 Fact sheet # 18 Blizzards…………………………………………………………………………………39 Fact sheet # 19 Manhauling………………………………………………………………………………40 Fact sheet #20 Antarctica glossary……………………………………………………………….41 2 Fact Sheet #1 Why are there so many poles? True Geographic Pole: either of two points of intersection of the surface of the Earth with the Earth's axis of rotation. The location of this pole moves approximately 10m a year and is recalculated each year. The true south geographic pole is located near Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Here there are many markers representing the movement of the true geographic pole. The distance between the south geographic pole and the south magnetic pole is approximately 2,858 kilometres. The geographic pole is also sometimes referred to as the geodetic pole. South Magnetic Pole: the point on the Earth's surface where the direction of the Earth's magnetic field is vertically upwards. The magnetic dip, the angle between the horizontal plane and the Earth's magnetic field lines, is 90° at the magnetic poles. The south magnetic pole is not fixed and its position moves about 5 kilometres a year presently in a north to north-westerly direction. The location of the south magnetic pole in 2007: 64.497° S and 137.684° E. Geomagnetic Pole: either of two points of intersection of the surface of the Earth with the extended axis of a magnetic dipole which is assumed to be located at the centre of the Earth and approximates the source of the Earth's magnetic field. It should not be confused with the magnetic pole which relates to the actual magnetic field of the Earth. The south geomagnetic pole is at 78° 30' S and 111° E which is near Russia's Vostok Station. Pole of Inaccessibility: the furthest point from any Antarctic coast. It is located at approximately 83° S and 55° E, approximately 870 kilometres from the South Pole. The pole of inaccessibility was reached by a Soviet Antarctic Expedition for International Geophysical Year research work in 1958. Today a building, plaque and bust of Vladimir Lenin still remain. They are protected as an historic site. When the site was visited in January 2007, only the bust and plaque were visible. 3 Ceremonial Pole: located near Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. It is a red and white striped barber pole capped with a metallic chromium globe. Surrounding the barber pole are 12 flags representing the original Antarctic Treaty signatories. The barber pole was placed on the geographic pole, but this pole moves 10m per year. Directions Geographic or true directions: North-south is along any meridian and east-west is along any parallel, because of the way the graticule has been defined. These lines are perpendicular except at the poles. The direction determined by the orientation of the graticule is called geographic or true direction. True north is therefore the direction towards the north geographic pole. Magnetic North: the direction indicated by the north seeking pole of a magnetic needle influenced only by the Earth's magnetic field. The direction of the magnetic pole is not usually parallel to the meridian. The difference between true north and magnetic north is called magnetic declination. Grid North: the northwards direction of a line of constant easting on a grid projection. When a rectangular grid is placed over the graticule of a map, the north direction of the grid will generally not coincide with true north. For example, when a UTM projection is used, grid north and true north only coincide at the central meridian. Away from the central meridian the difference between true north and grid north is known as the grid convergence. Meridian: a line approximating the surface of the Earth, from the north pole to the south pole and connecting points of equal longitude. The prime meridian, located at Greenwich, England, is the origin from which the numbering begins for identifying lines of longitude. Parallel: a circle approximating the surface of the Earth, parallel to the equator and connecting points of equal latitude. 4 Great Circle distance: the shortest distance between two points on the surface of the Earth, assuming the Earth is spherical. Source: Ursula Ryan, AADC For Australian Antarctic Division 5 Fact Sheet #2 Why were people interested in finding the South Magnetic Pole? The Age of Discovery The name Antarktikos derives from "opposite the Bear", Arktos being the Great Bear (or Big Dipper) constellation above the North Pole. Yet while the ancient Greeks only imagined the continent, the first human to encounter the Antarctic realm may well have been a seventh century Raratongan traveler, Ui-te-Rangiara who, it is said, "sailed south to a place of bitter cold where white rock-like forms grew out of a frozen sea," according to Polynesian legend. The discovery and exploration of the Antarctic is very recent in terms of human history —all the great discoveries about the continent have taken place in the space of just 200 years. But from the time of Columbus on, map-makers nearly always included a mythical continent described as 'Terra Australis Incognita " ('The Unknown Southern Land') situated exactly where today we know Antarctica stands. There were numerous voyages into subantarctic waters by the sailors and explorers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first recorded crossing of the Antarctic Circle, however, was in 1773 by British Captain James Cook and his crews aboard the Resolution and the Adventure . Altogether Cook made three voyages through Antarctic waters. Though never actually sighting the continent, he was convinced that there was "a tract of land at the Pole that is the source of all the ice that is spread over this vast Southern Ocean." Cook reached 71° S, a higher latitude than anyone before him, and in three years sailed some 62,000 miles (1000,000 km) in possibly the greatest sea voyage ever made. 6 These voyages were followed by a period when American and British sealers travelled south discovering subantarctic islands. From these islands they slaughtered fur seals for skins and giant elephant seals for oil. It was possibly a member of one of these sealing parties, Russian Admiral Von Bellinghausen, who made the first sighting of the Antarctic continent in January 1820. A British officer, Edward Bransfield, sighted the Antarctic Peninsula a month later, and Nathaniel Palmer, an American sealer, also claimed a sighting in November of that year. Scientific expeditions followed in the wake of the sealing parties. From the late 1830s onwards investigations into the earth's magnetic fields encouraged expeditions to set out to locate the South Magnetic Pole. The magnetic poles, one in each hemisphere, are the points where the earth's magnetic lines pass into the Earth. At these points, the magnetic or dip poles, a compass needle will stand vertically. The North Magnetic Pole had been discovered in 1831, sparking great interest among scientific teams from several different countries to find the southern equivalent. The Frenchman, Dumont d' Urville, and American Charles Wilkes, from the United States, searched for the South Magnetic Pole in 1840. The following year James Clark Ross of Great Britain sailed into what is now known as the Ross Sea, and determined the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole but was unable to reach it. Source: www.doc.ic.ac.uk/kpt/terraquest 7 Fact Sheet #3 Why is the Magnetic Pole continually moving? Earth has a magnetic field. If you imagine a gigantic bar magnet inside of Earth, you'll have a pretty good idea what Earth's magnetic field is shaped like. Of course, Earth DOESN'T have a giant bar magnet inside it; instead, our planet's magnetic field is made by swirling motions of molten iron in Earth's outer core. Earth has two geographic poles: the North Pole and the South Pole. They are the places on Earth's surface that Earth's imaginary spin axis passes through. Our planet also has two magnetic poles: the North Magnetic Pole and the South Magnetic Pole. The magnetic poles are near, but not quite in the same places as, the geographic poles. The needle in a compass points towards a magnetic pole. When you are far away from a pole a compass is very helpful if you want to find your way around. The compass needle points pretty much due South (or North if you live in the Northern Hemisphere!). However, if you are near either pole, a compass becomes useless. It points towards the magnetic pole, not the true geographic pole. Those two poles could be quite far apart, and in different directions. Think how hard it must have been for early explorers to find their way around in the Arctic and Antarctic without being able to use a compass! Earth's magnetic field is tilted a little bit. If we pretend that the Earth's magnetic field is made by a giant bar magnet, then that bar magnet would make an angle with Earth's spin axis. That angle is about 11°. That's why the magnetic poles and the geographic poles are not in the same place.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Annual Report COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE for RESEARCH in ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
    2015 Annual Report COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2015 annual report University of Colorado Boulder UCB 216 Boulder, CO 80309-0216 COOPERATIVE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES University of Colorado Boulder 216 UCB Boulder, CO 80309-0216 303-492-1143 [email protected] http://cires.colorado.edu CIRES Director Waleed Abdalati Annual Report Staff Katy Human, Director of Communications, Editor Susan Lynds and Karin Vergoth, Editing Robin L. Strelow, Designer Agreement No. NA12OAR4320137 Cover photo: Mt. Cook in the Southern Alps, West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island Birgit Hassler, CIRES/NOAA table of contents Executive summary & research highlights 2 project reports 82 From the Director 2 Air Quality in a Changing Climate 83 CIRES: Science in Service to Society 3 Climate Forcing, Feedbacks, and Analysis 86 This is CIRES 6 Earth System Dynamics, Variability, and Change 94 Organization 7 Management and Exploitation of Geophysical Data 105 Council of Fellows 8 Regional Sciences and Applications 115 Governance 9 Scientific Outreach and Education 117 Finance 10 Space Weather Understanding and Prediction 120 Active NOAA Awards 11 Stratospheric Processes and Trends 124 Systems and Prediction Models Development 129 People & Programs 14 CIRES Starts with People 14 Appendices 136 Fellows 15 Table of Contents 136 CIRES Centers 50 Publications by the Numbers 136 Center for Limnology 50 Publications 137 Center for Science and Technology
    [Show full text]
  • Recent North Magnetic Pole Acceleration Towards Siberia Caused by flux Lobe Elongation
    Recent north magnetic pole acceleration towards Siberia caused by flux lobe elongation Philip W. Livermore,1∗, Christopher C. Finlay 2, Matthew Bayliff 1 1School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK, 2DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Copenhagen, Denmark ∗To whom correspondence should be addressed; E-mail: [email protected]. Abstract The wandering of Earth’s north magnetic pole, the location where the magnetic field points vertically downwards, has long been a topic of scien- tific fascination. Since the first in-situ measurements in 1831 of its location in the Canadian arctic, the pole has drifted inexorably towards Siberia, ac- celerating between 1990 and 2005 from its historic speed of 0-15 km/yr to its present speed of 50-60 km/yr. In late October 2017 the north magnetic pole crossed the international date line, passing within 390 km of the geo- graphic pole, and is now moving southwards. Here we show that over the last two decades the position of the north magnetic pole has been largely determined by two large-scale lobes of negative magnetic flux on the core- mantle-boundary under Canada and Siberia. Localised modelling shows that elongation of the Canadian lobe, likely caused by an alteration in the pattern of core-flow between 1970 and 1999, significantly weakened its signature on Earth’s surface causing the pole to accelerate towards Siberia. A range of simple models that capture this process indicate that over the next decade arXiv:2010.11033v1 [physics.geo-ph] 21 Oct 2020 the north magnetic pole will continue on its current trajectory travelling a further 390-660 km towards Siberia.
    [Show full text]
  • Northwest Passage Trail
    Nunavut Parks & Special Places – Editorial Series January, 2008 NorThwesT Passage Trail The small Nunavut community of Gjoa Haven Back in the late eighteenth and nineteenth is located on King William Island, right on the centuries, a huge effort was put forth by historic Northwest Passage and home to the Europeans to locate a passage across northern Northwest Passage Trail which meanders within North America to connect the European nations the community, all within easy walking distance with the riches of the Orient. From the east, many from the hotel. A series of signs, a printed guide, ships entered Hudson Bay and Lancaster Sound, and a display of artifacts in the hamlet office mapping the routes and seeking a way through interpret the local Inuit culture, exploration of the ice-choked waters and narrow channels to the the Northwest Passage, and the story of the Gjoa Pacific Ocean and straight sailing to the oriental and Roald Amundsen. It is quite an experience lands and profitable trading. The only other to walk the shores of history here, learning of routes were perilous – rounding Cape Horn at the exploration of the North, and the lives of the the southern tip of South America or the Cape of people who helped the explorers. Good Hope at the southern end of Africa. As a result, many expeditions were launched to seek a passage through the arctic archipelago. Aussi disponible en français xgw8Ns7uJ5 wk5tg5 Pilaaktut Inuinaqtut ᑲᔾᔮᓇᖅᑐᖅ k a t j a q n a a q listen to the land aliannaktuk en osmose avec la terre Through the efforts of the Royal Navy, and WANDER THROUGH HISTORY Lady Jane Franklin, John Franklin’s wife, At the Northwest Passage Trail in the at least 29 expeditions were launched to community of Gjoa Haven, visitors can, seek Franklin and his men, or evidence of through illustrations and text on interpretive their fate.
    [Show full text]
  • Map and Compass
    UE CG 039-089 2018_UE CG 039-089 2018 2018-08-29 9:57 AM Page 56 MAP The north magnetic pole is not the same as the geographic North Pole, also known as AND COMPASS true north, which is the northern end of the axis around which the earth spins. In fact, the north magnetic pole currently lies Background Information approximately 800 mi (1300 km) south of the geographic North Pole, in northern A compass is an instrument that people use Canada. And because the north magnetic to find a direction in relation to the earth as pole migrates at 6.6 mi (10 km) per year, its a whole. The magnetic needle in the location is constantly changing. compass, which is the freely moving needle in the compass that has a red end, points The meridians of longitude on maps and north. More specifically, this needle points globes are based upon the geographic to the north magnetic pole, the northern North Pole rather than the north magnetic end of the earth’s magnetic field, which pole. This means that magnetic north, the can be imagined as lines of magnetism that direction that a compass indicates as north, leave the south magnetic pole, flow north is not the same direction as maps indicate around the earth, and then enter the north for north. Magnetic declination, the magnetic pole. difference in the angle between magnetic north and true north must, therefore, be Any magnetized object, an object with two taken into account when navigating with a oppositely charged ends, such as a magnet map and a compass.
    [Show full text]
  • Antarctic Primer
    Antarctic Primer By Nigel Sitwell, Tom Ritchie & Gary Miller By Nigel Sitwell, Tom Ritchie & Gary Miller Designed by: Olivia Young, Aurora Expeditions October 2018 Cover image © I.Tortosa Morgan Suite 12, Level 2 35 Buckingham Street Surry Hills, Sydney NSW 2010, Australia To anyone who goes to the Antarctic, there is a tremendous appeal, an unparalleled combination of grandeur, beauty, vastness, loneliness, and malevolence —all of which sound terribly melodramatic — but which truly convey the actual feeling of Antarctica. Where else in the world are all of these descriptions really true? —Captain T.L.M. Sunter, ‘The Antarctic Century Newsletter ANTARCTIC PRIMER 2018 | 3 CONTENTS I. CONSERVING ANTARCTICA Guidance for Visitors to the Antarctic Antarctica’s Historic Heritage South Georgia Biosecurity II. THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT Antarctica The Southern Ocean The Continent Climate Atmospheric Phenomena The Ozone Hole Climate Change Sea Ice The Antarctic Ice Cap Icebergs A Short Glossary of Ice Terms III. THE BIOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT Life in Antarctica Adapting to the Cold The Kingdom of Krill IV. THE WILDLIFE Antarctic Squids Antarctic Fishes Antarctic Birds Antarctic Seals Antarctic Whales 4 AURORA EXPEDITIONS | Pioneering expedition travel to the heart of nature. CONTENTS V. EXPLORERS AND SCIENTISTS The Exploration of Antarctica The Antarctic Treaty VI. PLACES YOU MAY VISIT South Shetland Islands Antarctic Peninsula Weddell Sea South Orkney Islands South Georgia The Falkland Islands South Sandwich Islands The Historic Ross Sea Sector Commonwealth Bay VII. FURTHER READING VIII. WILDLIFE CHECKLISTS ANTARCTIC PRIMER 2018 | 5 Adélie penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula I. CONSERVING ANTARCTICA Antarctica is the largest wilderness area on earth, a place that must be preserved in its present, virtually pristine state.
    [Show full text]
  • Polar “Wandering” Curves
    POLAR “WANDERING” CURVES We have learned that rock samples containing magnetic minerals (commonly magnetite) provide information (direction and inclination) on where they were formed relative to the north magnetic pole. Turning this around – if we collect recent volcanic rocks from different places around the world, measurement of their magnetic direction and inclination will converge on the present magnetic north pole. POLE POSITION ~ 900 - INCLINATION Does this happen with ancient rocks? If we measure their magnetic inclination and direction, we might expect that rocks of the same age on different continents would give identical polar positions, which should correspond with the present polar position. Rocks of different ages give different polar positions Rocks of the same age but on different continents give different polar positions The older the rock the further the calculated polar position is from the present position Not here as expected! EXAMPLE Permian ~ 245-286 million years Examples of so-called “Polar Wandering Curves” Plotting the apparent polar positions for rocks of different ages from North America and Eurasia produces two curves, the so-called “polar wandering curves”. Note that as the curves get younger they converge. Fitting the continents back together results in a single curve. Nonetheless, the positions still do not correspond with the current magnetic position. To account for this, the continents would have had to move northwards as well. Explanation of “Polar Wandering Curves” 300 million years ago Today Sideways
    [Show full text]
  • AQUILA BOOKS Specializing in Books and Ephemera Related to All Aspects of the Polar Regions
    AQUILA BOOKS Specializing in Books and Ephemera Related to all Aspects of the Polar Regions Winter 2012 Presentation copy to Lord Northcliffe of The Limited Edition CATALOGUE 112 88 ‘The Heart of the Antarctic’ 12 26 44 49 42 43 Items on Front Cover 3 4 13 9 17 9 54 6 12 74 84 XX 72 70 21 24 8 7 7 25 29 48 48 48 37 63 59 76 49 50 81 7945 64 74 58 82 41 54 77 43 80 96 84 90 100 2 6 98 81 82 59 103 85 89 104 58 AQUILA BOOKS Box 75035, Cambrian Postal Outlet Calgary, AB T2K 6J8 Canada Cameron Treleaven, Proprietor A.B.A.C. / I.L.A.B., P.B.F.A., N.A.A.B., F.R.G.S. Hours: 10:30 – 5:30 MDT Monday-Saturday Dear Customers; Welcome to our first catalogue of 2012, the first catalogue in the last two years! We are hopefully on schedule to produce three catalogues this year with the next one mid May before the London Fairs and the last just before Christmas. We are building our e-mail list and hopefully we will be e-mailing the catalogues as well as by regular mail starting in 2013. If you wish to receive the catalogues by e-mail please make sure we have your correct e-mail address. Best regards, Cameron Phone: (403) 282-5832 Fax: (403) 289-0814 Email: [email protected] All Prices net in US Dollars. Accepted payment methods: by Credit Card (Visa or Master Card) and also by Cheque or Money Order, payable on a North American bank.
    [Show full text]
  • Cape Denison MAWSON CENTENNIAL 1911–2011, Commonwealth Bay
    Cape Denison MAWSON CENTENNIAL 1911–2011, Commonwealth Bay Mawson and the Australasian Geology of Cape Denison Landforms of Cape Denison Position of Cape Denison in Gondwana Antarctic Expedition The two dominant rock-types found at Cape Denison Cape Denison is a small ice-free rocky outcrop covering Around 270 Million years ago the continents that we are orthogneiss and amphibolite. There are also minor less than one square kilometre, which emerges from The Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) took place know today were part of a single ancient supercontinent occurrences of coarse grained felsic pegmatites. beneath the continental ice sheet. Stillwell (1918) reported between 1911 and 1914, and was organised and led by called Pangea. Later, Pangea split into two smaller that the continental ice sheet rises steeply behind Cape the geologist, Dr Douglas Mawson. The expedition was The Cape Denison Orthogneiss was described by Stillwell (1918) as supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana, and Denison reaching an altitude of ‘1000 ft in three miles and jointly funded by the Australian and British Governments coarse-grained grey quartz-feldspar layered granitic gneiss. These rock Antarctica formed part of Gondwana. with contributions received from various individuals and types are normally formed by metamorphism (changed by extreme heat 1500 ft in five and a half miles’ (approximately 300 metres and pressure) of granites. The Cape Denison Orthogneiss is found around In current reconstructions of the supercontinent Gondwana, the Cape scientific societies, including the Australasian Association to 450 metres over 8.9 kilometres). Photography by Chris Carson Cape Denison, the nearby offshore Mackellar Islands, and nearby outcrops Denison–Commonwealth Bay region was located adjacent to the coast for the Advancement of Science.
    [Show full text]
  • Magnetic North Pole Shifting at 50Km a Year
    International Union of Marine Insurance Magnetic North Pole shifting at 50km a year 14th January 2019 For unknown reasons the shift in the Magnetic North Pole has accelerated rapidly in the past 40 years, potentially causing problems for navigation for vessels within the Arctic Circle, just as the northern route is opening up to commercial traffic, Reuters reported at the weekend. Compass needles point towards the north magnetic pole, which has been moving at an unpredictable rate from the coast of northern Canada a century ago to the middle of the Arctic Ocean, heading in the direction of Russia. Ciaran Beggan, of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, UK, told Reuters last week that it was “moving at about 50 km (30 miles) a year. It didn’t move much between 1900 and 1980 but it’s really accelerated in the past 40 years,” The rapid shift has forced researchers to update early a model that helps navigation by ships, planes and submarines in the Arctic. A five-year update of the World Magnetic Model was due in 2020, but the US military has requested an unprecedented early review, he said. The BGS runs the model in association with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Beggan said that the moving pole affected navigation, particularly in the Arctic Ocean north of Canada. As well as civilian navigation, NATO, the US and UK militaries use the magnetic model. An update will be released on January 30th, delayed from January 15th because of the current shutdown of the US government. Beggan said the recent shifts in the north magnetic pole would be unnoticed by most people outside the Arctic.
    [Show full text]
  • The Harrowing Story of Shackletons Ross Sea Party Pdf Free Download
    THE LOST MEN: THE HARROWING STORY OF SHACKLETONS ROSS SEA PARTY PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Kelly Tyler-Lewis | 384 pages | 03 Sep 2007 | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | 9780747579724 | English | London, United Kingdom Ross Sea party - Wikipedia Aurora finally broke free from the ice on 12 February and managed to reach New Zealand on 2 April. Because Mackintosh had intended to use Aurora as the party's main living quarters, most of the shore party's personal gear, food, equipment and fuel was still aboard when the ship departed. Although the sledging rations intended for Shackleton's depots had been landed, [41] the ten stranded men were left with "only the clothes on their backs". We cannot expect rescue before then, and so we must conserve and economize on what we have, and we must seek and apply what substitutes we can gather". On the last day of August Mackintosh recorded in his diary the work that had been completed during the winter, and ended: "Tomorrow we start for Hut Point". The second season's work was planned in three stages. Nine men in teams of three would undertake the sledging work. The first stage, hauling over the sea ice to Hut Point, started on 1 September , and was completed without mishap by the end of the month. Shortly after the main march to Mount Hope began, on 1 January , the failure of a Primus stove led to three men Cope, Jack and Gaze returning to Cape Evans, [49] where they joined Stevens. The scientist had remained at the base to take weather measurements and watch for the ship.
    [Show full text]
  • A Calculation Algorithm for the Remotest Places
    Scottish Geographical Journal Vol. 123, No. 3, 227 – 233, September 2007 Poles of Inaccessibility: A Calculation Algorithm for the Remotest Places on Earth DANIEL GARCIA-CASTELLANOS* & UMBERTO LOMBARDO** *ICT Jaume Almera, Sole i Sabarı´s, Barcelona, Spain **Universita¨t Bern, Bern, Switzerland ABSTRACT An algorithm is presented to calculate the point on the surface of a sphere maximising the great-circle distance to a given spherical polygon. This is used to calculate the spots furthest from the sea in major land masses, also known as Poles of Inaccessibility (PIA), a concept that has raised the interest of explorers. For the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility (EPIA), Downloaded By: [Garcia-Castellanos, Daniel] At: 13:01 6 March 2008 the results reveal a misplacement in previous calculations ranging from 156 to 435 km. Although in general there is only one pole for a given coastline, the present calculations show that, within the error inherent to the definition of the coastline, two locations are candidates for EPIA, one equidistant from Gulf of Ob, Gulf of Bengal and Arabian Sea, and the other equidistant from Gulf of Ob, Gulf of Bengal and Gulf of Bohai, both poles being located in the north westernmost Chinese province of Xinjiang. The distance to the sea at these locations is 2510 and 2514 km respectively, about 120 km closer than generally thought. KEY WORDS: Distance to sea, computer method Introduction Distance from the sea is historically related to isolation and inaccessibility. A Pole of Inaccessibility (PIA) is defined as the location furthest from a particular coastline (Figure 1). The concept was first introduced by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1920) to distinguish between the North Pole and the most difficult-to-reach place in the Arctic.
    [Show full text]
  • Australian Antarctic Magazine
    AusTRALIAN MAGAZINE ISSUE 23 2012 7317 AusTRALIAN ANTARCTIC ISSUE 2012 MAGAZINE 23 The Australian Antarctic Division, a Division of the Department for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, leads Australia’s CONTENTS Antarctic program and seeks to advance Australia’s Antarctic interests in pursuit of its vision of having PROFILE ‘Antarctica valued, protected and understood’. It does Charting the seas of science 1 this by managing Australian government activity in Antarctica, providing transport and logistic support to SEA ICE VOYAGE Australia’s Antarctic research program, maintaining four Antarctic science in the spring sea ice zone 4 permanent Australian research stations, and conducting scientific research programs both on land and in the Sea ice sky-lab 5 Southern Ocean. Search for sea ice algae reveals hidden Antarctic icescape 6 Australia’s four Antarctic goals are: Twenty metres under the sea ice 8 • To maintain the Antarctic Treaty System and enhance Australia’s influence in it; Pumping krill into research 9 • To protect the Antarctic environment; Rhythm of Antarctic life 10 • To understand the role of Antarctica in the global SCIENCE climate system; and A brave new world as Macquarie Island moves towards recovery 12 • To undertake scientific work of practical, economic and national significance. Listening to the blues 14 Australian Antarctic Magazine seeks to inform the Bugs, soils and rocks in the Prince Charles Mountains 16 Australian and international Antarctic community Antarctic bottom water disappearing 18 about the activities of the Australian Antarctic Antarctic bioregions enhance conservation planning 19 program. Opinions expressed in Australian Antarctic Magazine do not necessarily represent the position of Antarctic ice clouds 20 the Australian Government.
    [Show full text]