The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica that 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 or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish ...

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 – ) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–04 and the Terra Nova Expedition ...

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 Antarcti ...

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 from the

. Shackleton named this plateau the King Edward VII Plateau in honour of the

king of the United Kingdom The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the form of government used by the United Kingdom by which a hereditary monarch reigns as the head of state, with their powers Constitutional monarchy, regula ...

. 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 Norwegians, 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, Am ...

decided to name this plateau the King Haakon VII Plateau in honour of the newly elected king of Norway. The Antarctic Plateau was first observed and photographed from the air in 1929 by a

Ford Trimotor The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed the "Tin Goose") is an American Trimotor, three-engined transport plane, transport aircraft. Production started in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and ended on June 7, 1933, afte ...

aeroplane 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 Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

of this flight was Bernt Balchen, a native of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

, 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 prim ...

and chief organizer of this expedition was Richard E. Byrd of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, an officer in the U.S. Navy. 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). The microbial community is mainly composed of members of the Alphaproteobacteria class (e.g. Kiloniellaceae and

Rhodobacteraceae The Rhodobacteraceae are a family of Pseudomonadota in the order Rhodobacterales within the alpha subgroup.See the NCBIbr>webpage on Rhodobacteraceae Data extracted from the Like all Pseudomonadota, they are gram-negative. It contains chem ...

), which is one of the most well-represented bacterial groups in marine habitats;

Bacteroidota The phylum (biology), phylum Bacteroidota (synonym Bacteroidetes) is composed of three large classes of Gram-negative bacteria, Gram-negative, nonsporeforming, anaerobic or aerobic, and rod-shaped bacteria that are widely distributed in the envir ...

(e.g. Cryomorphaceae and Flavobacteriaceae); and

Cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria ( ) are a group of autotrophic gram-negative bacteria that can obtain biological energy via oxygenic photosynthesis. The name "cyanobacteria" () refers to their bluish green (cyan) color, which forms the basis of cyanobacteri ...

. According to research, polar microorganisms should be considered as not only deposited airborne particles, but also as active components of the snowpack 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

penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

s live on the Antarctic Plateau, and few birds routinely fly over it, except mostly Antarctic petrels,

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

s and south polar skuas. There are very few land animals anywhere on the plateau, or the Antarctic in general;

nematode The nematodes ( or ; ; ), roundworms or eelworms constitute the phylum Nematoda. Species in the phylum inhabit a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but many are parasitic. Parasitic worms (h ...

springtail Springtails (class Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern Hexapoda, hexapods that are no longer considered insects. Although the three lineages are sometimes grouped together in a class called Entognatha because they have in ...

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...

midge A midge is any small fly, including species in several family (biology), families of non-mosquito nematoceran Diptera. Midges are found (seasonally or otherwise) on practically every land area outside permanently arid deserts and the frigid ...

s, 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