Page 110 - Super Earth Encyclopedia

FROZEN CONTINENT

ANTARCTICA

The continent of Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth.
It was once the home of dinosaurs that roamed through
green forests, but the relentless forces of plate tectonics
carried the land mass to the South Pole where it was Like the Ronne Ice Shelf, the Ross
transformed into an icy wasteland. Most of Antarctica’s The floating Ronne Ice Shelf Ice Shelf is a vast sheet of floating
ice. Huge pieces regularly break
rocky continent is buried deep beneath vast ice sheets is part of the West Antarctic away to form gigantic icebergs.
Ice Sheet that spills out
that spill out over its freezing coastal seas. over the Weddell Sea.

The Antarctic Peninsula
extends toward the tip of South
America. Its icy mountains are
fringed by rocky tundra.

Rock and ice
If the thick ice could be lifted off Antarctica
it would reveal a continent divided in two
by the rugged Transantarctic Mountains.
Much of the continental rock lies below sea
level, weighed down by the colossal weight
of ice. The thickest ice occurs near the
South Pole on East Antarctica.

AT A GLANCE

Weddell Sea

SOUTHERN OCEAN
• LOCATION South Pole Ross Sea
• AREA 5,400,000 sq miles (14,000,000 sq km)

• ICE SHEET DEPTH 1.2 miles (1.9 km)
on average
• HIGHEST POINT Vinson Massif near the base
of the Antarctic Peninsula, at 16,050 ft (4,892 m) Antarctica is surrounded
by the stormy Southern
Ocean, which freezes
over in winter. West Antarctica has a ridge of
mountains covered by a sheet Pulverized rock carried off the
of ice, which extends out to continent by moving ice covers
sea as floating ice shelves. the bed of the Ross Sea.

US_108-109_Antarctic_Ice_Shelf.indd 108 01/03/17 1:38 pm