The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King

Haakon VII Haakon VII (; born Prince Carl of Denmark; 3 August 187221 September 1957) was the King of Norway from November 1905 until his death in September 1957. Originally a Danish prince, he was born in Copenhagen as the son of the future Frederick ...

Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica which extends over a diameter of about , and includes the region of the geographic

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This huge continental plateau is at an average elevation of about .

Exploration

This plateau was first sighted in 1903 during the ''Discovery'' Expedition to the Antarctic, which was led by

Robert Falcon Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of ...

became the first to cross parts of this plateau in 1909 during his ''Nimrod'' Expedition, which turned back in bad weather when it had reached a point just from the

. Shackleton named this plateau the

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

Plateau in honour of the king of the United Kingdom. In December 1911, while returning from the first journey to the South Pole, the Norwegian explorer

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...

decided to name this plateau the

King Haakon VII Haakon VII (; born Prince Carl of Denmark; 3 August 187221 September 1957) was the King of Norway from November 1905 until his death in September 1957. Originally a Danish prince, he was born in Copenhagen as the son of the future Frederick VI ...

Plateau in honour of the newly elected king of Norway. The Antarctic Plateau was first observed and photographed from the air in 1929 from a Ford Trimotor airplane carrying four men on the first flight to the South Pole and back to the seacoast. The chief

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

of this flight was Bernt Balchen, a native of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, and the

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

and chief organizer of this expedition was

Richard E. Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

, an officer in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

. The other two members of its crew were the co-pilot and the photographer.

Climate

The high elevations of the Antarctic Plateau, combined with its high latitudes and its extremely long, sunless winters, mean that the temperatures here are the lowest in the world in most years, falling as low as .

Fauna

The nearly continuous frigid winds that blow across the Antarctic Plateau, especially in the austral winter, make the environment inhospitable to life. Microbial abundance is low (<103 cells/ml of

snowmelt In hydrology, snowmelt is surface runoff produced from melting snow. It can also be used to describe the period or season during which such runoff is produced. Water produced by snowmelt is an important part of the annual water cycle in many par ...

). The microbial community is mainly composed of members of the

Alphaproteobacteria Alphaproteobacteria is a class of bacteria in the phylum Pseudomonadota (formerly Proteobacteria). The Magnetococcales and Mariprofundales are considered basal or sister to the Alphaproteobacteria. The Alphaproteobacteria are highly diverse and ...

class (e.g.

Kiloniellaceae The ''Kiloniellaceae'' are a family of bacteria from the order Rhodospirillales. References Rhodospirillales Bacteria families {{Alphaproteobacteria-stub ...

and Rhodobacteraceae), which is one of the most well represented bacterial groups in marine habitats; Bacteroidota (e.g.

Cryomorphaceae Cryomorphaceae is a family of bacteria in the order Flavobacteriales which occur in marine habitats Marine habitats are habitats that support marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the saltwater that is in the sea (the term ''ma ...

and Flavobacteriaceae); and Cyanobacteria. According to research, polar microorganisms should be considered not only as deposited airborne particles, but also as active components of the

snowpack Snowpack forms from layers of snow that accumulate in geographic regions and high elevations where the climate includes cold weather for extended periods during the year. Snowpacks are an important water resource that feed streams and rivers as th ...

ecology of the Antarctic Plateau.Michaud L, Lo Giudice A, Mysara M, Monsieurs P, Raffa C, Leys N, et al. (2014) Snow Surface Microbiome on the high Antarctic Plateau (DOME C). PLoS ONE 9(8): e104505. No penguins live on the Antarctic Plateau, and few birds routinely fly over it, except mostly

snow petrel The snow petrel (''Pagodroma nivea'') is the only member of the genus ''Pagodroma.'' It is one of only three birds that has been seen at the Geographic South Pole, along with the Antarctic petrel and the south polar skua, which have the most s ...

s and

south polar skua The south polar skua (''Stercorarius maccormicki'') is a large seabird in the skua family, Stercorariidae. An older name for the bird is MacCormick's skua, after explorer and naval surgeon Robert McCormick, who first collected the type specimen. ...

s. There are very few

land animal Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various islan ...

s anywhere on the plateau, or the Antarctic in general; nematodes,

springtail Springtails (Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects (the other two are the Protura and Diplura). Although the three orders are sometimes grouped together in a class called Ento ...

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear e ...

s, midges, humans and dogs.

References

{{coord, 77, 00, S, 150, 00, E, region:AQ_type:landmark_source:kolossus-dewiki, display=title Plateaus of Antarctica East Antarctica Landforms of Queen Maud Land

Exploration

Climate

Fauna

See also

References