Opinions are divided as to whether the area of Vestfold Hills was formerly covered by the East Antarctic ice sheet or S0rsdal Glacier. Striae orientations have been used to erect the model of extension of the ice sheet followed by a minor lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier, while basal till fabrics; distribution of weathered rock; and the nature, orientation, and distribution of moraines have been used to conclude that lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier alone can explain the evidence of the last glaciation of Vestfold Hills. A review of all available data supports the model of regional glaciation by an extended East Antarctic ice sheet. Lateral expansion of Sørsdal Glacier has probably only played a minor role in the glaciation of Vestfold Hills since the regional glaciation.

Although at the time the zoological establishment had little interest in the smaller planktonic and benthic marine invertebrates, James Ross assisted by Joseph Hooker amassed a large collection of these animals during the Erebus and Terror voyage of 1839–43. These samples perished withoutRoss having carried out his intention of working on them. The only knownmaterial relating to them that survives today consists of a small number of drawings by Hooker in the British Museum (Natural History). These are evidently the remnants of a much larger collection which became dispersed among the experts preparing Challenger reports from 1876 onwards. Undoubtedly Ross and Hooker discovered many new species and genera (an example discussed being an apparently undescribed pycnogonid) which were left undescribed. Their finding of animal life at depths below 300 fathoms was not properly publicized so that Forbes' doctrine of the absence of life in the depths of the sea was able to persist for several more decades.

And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one would grow before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together. (The King of Brobdingnag, in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, 1726.)

The United States and Canada, like other northern industrial nations, are under considerable economic pressures to develop their indigenous resources of oil and natural gas. Incentives for exploration and development are provided by increases in the price of fuels on world markets and political instability in the Middle East, the major alternative source of supply. The Arab oil embargo of 1973–74 quadrupled prices per barrel from US$3.00 to US$12.00 in less than a year; since then the price on world markets has trebled and remains unstable. Searches for new sources of energy in the far north have led firstly to the discovery of major shore-based fields (for example those centred on Prudhoe Bay), and the extension of old ones (Norman Wells), and more recently to important developments off-shore. Many new sites are now being explored, and to date over two billion dollars have been spent by the US and Canada, to find and develop Arctic offshore wells. As yet not a cent has been earned in return, largely because there are at present no means of delivering the petroleum from offshore sites—no safe and reliable system of transportation equivalent to the pipelines from shore-based sites. Industry and government are considering alternatives, but no full-scale construction or procurement programmes have yet been launched.

This paper presents a brief history of Greenland which sets the scene for unprecedented recent developments, both materially and politically. After the war, in 1953, the political status of Greenland was changed from colony to an integral part of Denmark. Greenland gained home rule [Hjemmestyre] in 1979 and greater devolution to self rule [Selvstyre] in 2009. The population is becoming centralised, increasingly resembling consumer societies worldwide. In recent years the economy has been mainly based upon fish and mining, although at present there is no active mine and the economy is declining, making the country increasingly dependent on subsidies from Denmark. The former president recently predicted that Greenland would leave Denmark within her life-time, a view based upon her vision of the development of a rich mining industry. Additionally she established a reconciliation committee to examine supposed ill-treatment by Denmark. The present situation and the unrealistic expectations of huge production of different minerals are discussed based upon accepted predictions of mineral resources, world market prices, logistic problems (lack of infrastructure and tiny population) and environmental concerns. During the past year, a more realistic and less confrontational debate on the relations between Denmark and Greenland has been evident.

Whalers and sealers were the first people to visit the southern oceans in numbers, and in the 1930's Antarctic whaling accounted for some 12 per cent (by weight) of the total harvest of fish and other animals from the sea. It was the importance of the whaling industry and the need to know more about the physical and biological system on which it was based that was the justification for the classic work organized by the Discovery Committee between the wars. Since then whale catches have declined in absolute and relative terms, and public concern for the whale as the victim of an outstanding example of bad management of a large natural resource has increased.

On 7 December 1945 a captured German whaling factory, Wikinger, was allocated to the Soviet Union under the terms of the Potsdam Agreement between that country, the United States and the United Kingdom. In the first section, this article presents the first detailed account of how Wikinger was seized by the Royal Navy and eventually transferred to Soviet ownership. The second section illustrates the hostile attitudes of western governments towards the Slava whaling flotilla during the cold war, and the degree to which their suspicions were focused on the work of scientists assigned to the flotilla. The next four sections trace the fluctuating perceptions and presentations, during the Tsarist and early Soviet periods, of the Imperial Russian Navy's Antarctic expedition of 1819–1821, the problems in respect of Antarctica which confronted Soviet diplomacy and propaganda in the 1940s, and the new story, about Russians having been the first people to discover Antarctica, which was developed in order to address them. It is then possible, in the seventh section, to explain the political utility of the Slava flotilla in the early 1950s. An eighth section sketches the divergent cultural fortunes of the Bellingshausen expedition and the Slava flotilla after the period under consideration.

This article discusses the use of whaling and history in support of Soviet Antarctic policy between the end of World War 2 and the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957–1958. But the Slava whaling flotilla did not just play a part in the historicisation of Soviet Antarctic policy. It was itself a historically constituted object, fraught with meanings on both sides of the cold war. For that reason the opportunity is taken to give a more detailed account of the flotilla's origins than has been available hitherto. The author notes that two contributors to this journal have preceded him in some of these matters (Armstrong 1950, 1971; Gan 2009). He ventures to suggest, however, that the connections between whaling, historiography and public information management in Soviet Antarctic policy have not been fully demonstrated before this.

The regulation of tourism in polar areas is increasingly of concern to scientists, policy makers, tourists, and tourist operators who wish to control negative impacts and promote positive ones. Given the growing emphasis on finding and using appropriate ways to control visitors to the polar regions, it is important to examine issues related to the effectiveness of individual measures of regulation and the broader strategies that are in effect in these places. This paper examines the effectiveness of visitor-regulation strategies by outlining a two-step approach to evaluation. The initial step should involve determining the nature and attributes of the measures that make up the strategy. Commonalities, differences, constraints, and complementarity in these measures must be assessed. Particular attributes outlined in the paper, such as scale of jurisdiction and degree of restrictiveness, can be examined to assess the compatibility and consistency of the measures, which have implications for overall strategy effectiveness. While it may be appropriate to evaluate individual measures further using a goal-achievement approach, the paper recommends evaluating strategies through a conceptual approach based on criteria related to the characteristics of an effective strategy. Four are described in the paper: comprehensiveness, enforceability, outcomes, and appropriateness.

Place names serve a symbolic function in enforcing colonial power over landscapes. Within colonial locales, place names reproduce and reflect the ideological goals of settlers to reinforce or claim space for an individual, group or nation. One toponymically understudied colonial region where place names play a prominent role is the Antarctic, where the names of research bases promote the cultural power of settler nations to symbolically claim the continental landscape. As Antarctica is a geopolitically contested space, Antarctic research base names serve as an ideological purpose in reinforcing claims to the Antarctic, contrasting the ostensibly scientific purpose of research bases. This paper examines Antarctic research base names by categorising and interpreting their naming sources through a critical toponymic lens. This paper discusses general Antarctic naming trends and establishes possible reasons and outcomes of their employment, using three primary arguments: (1) Antarctic research base names are often nationalistic and reflect the implicit geopolitical goals of settler nations, (2) Antarctic research base names reflect and reproduce ongoing polar colonialism and (3) contestation over the naming of Antarctic research bases exemplifies the iconographical and cultural conflict between Antarctic nations. This paper seeks to provoke a future toponymic investigation into Antarctica and study Antarctic cultural landscapes more generally.

Melt ponds are common on the surface of ice floes in the Arctic Ocean during spring and summer. Few studies on melt pond algae communities have been accomplished. These studies have shown that these melt ponds were ultra-oligotrophic, and contribute little to overall productivity. However, during the 6th Chinese Arctic Cruise in the Arctic Ocean in summer 2014, a closed coloured melt pond with a chlorophyll a concentration of 15.32 μg/L was observed on Arctic pack ice in the Canada Basin. The bloom was caused by the chlorophyte Carteria lunzensis at an abundance of 15.49×106 cells/L and biomass of 5.07 mg C/L. Primary production within surface melt ponds may need more attention along with Arctic warming.

This paper describes a new technique simultaneously to estimate topography and motion of polar glaciers from multi-temporal SAR interferograms. The approach is based on a combination of several SAR interferograms in a least-squares adjustment using the Gauss-Markov model. For connecting the multi-temporal data sets, a spatio-temporal model is proposed that describes the properties of the surface and its temporal evolution. Rigorous mathematical modelling of functional and stochastic relations allows for a systematic description of the processing chain. It is also an optimal tool to set parameters for the statistics of every individual processing step, and the propagation of errors into the results. Within the paper theoretical standard deviations of the unknowns are calculated depending on the configuration of the data sets. The influence of gross errors in the observations and the effect of non-modelled error sources on the unknowns are estimated. A validation of the approach based on real data concludes the paper.

The United Nations as a body has hitherto shown little interest or involvement in Antarctica. A recently developed campaign, led by several of the developing nations, now aims to involve the international community more closely in the management of the continent and its resources. Argument that Antarctica should be regarded as part of the common heritage of mankind finds little support among Antarctic Treaty nations, who favour continuing management under the treaty system. A nine-hour discussion in the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly during November 1983 resulted in a resolution on ‘the question of Antarctica’ which the General Assembly adopted unanimously on 15 December; the Secretary-General has been asked to report on ‘all aspects of Antarctica’ in time for further discussion in September 1984.

The following notes are intended not as a rigid set of rules but as a guide for future antarctic travellers: common sense must be used in their application. Systematic breeding, training and driving of dogs are essential in an organization as large as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, but modifications must naturally be made to suit particular requirements.

In January-February 1939, a secret German expedition visited Dronning (or Queen) Maud Land, Antarctica, apparently with the intention inter alia of establishing a base there. Between 1943 and 1945 the British launched a secret wartime Antarctic operation, code-named Tabarin. Men from the Special Air Services Regiment (SAS), Britain's covert forces for operating behind the lines, appeared to be involved. In July and August 1945, after the German surrender, two U-boats arrived in Argentina. Had they been to Antarctica to land Nazi treasure or officials? In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation, code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus. Given the initial lack of information about these various activities, it is not, perhaps, surprising that some people would connect them to produce a pattern in which governments would be accused of suppressing information about ‘what really happened’, and would use these pieces of information to construct a myth of a large German base existing in Antarctica and of allied efforts to destroy it. Using background knowledge of Antarctica and information concerning these activities that has been published since the early 1940s, it is demonstrated: that the two U-Boats could not have reached Antarctica; that there was no secret wartime German base in Dronning Maud Land; that SAS troops did not attack the alleged German base; that the SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs; that Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic, and not to attack an alleged German base in Antarctica; and that Operation Argus took place over the ocean more than 2000 km north of Dronning Maud Land. Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified and it is no longer difficult to separate fact from fancy, despite the fact that many find it attractive not to do so.

This paper examines how Antarctica has been depicted in recruitment material, and compares the expectations set up in the advertising imagery with the reality of expeditioners’ experiences. Textual analyses of advertisements and job descriptions are used to reveal dominant themes, including the trope of extremity, while interviews with those who have spent time on the ice provide reflections on the actual challenges encountered when working in Antarctica, such as boredom. Much of the popular discourse around Antarctica continues to centre on the Heroic Era (1895–1922), a time of exploration typified by men pitting themselves against nature and striding out into unchartered expanses of ice. Although modern day life on Antarctic stations differs markedly from the extreme conditions experienced by early explorers, the continent continues to be associated with notions of toughness and extremity. We argue that in some cases, advertisements may actually target the wrong audience. This has important implications for how an Antarctic station as a workplace is conceptualised, and then experienced by those who head south, with potential detrimental effects.

This essay serves as an introduction to the special issue recognising the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty. It provides the geopolitical and scientific context informing the creation of the negotiations for a new treaty between October and December 1959. Thereafter, it identifies some of the challenges facing the contemporary Antarctic Treaty System. While none are thought to be threatening to the collaborative spirit that informs the legal and political status quo, there is no room for complacency either. Finally, the contributors and their essays are introduced for the reader. Taken together, it showcases the diversity of work being undertaken by scholars in the humanities and social sciences.

1991 saw the ninth successive United Nations (UN) discussion on the ‘Question of Antarctica.’ The adoption of two more resolutions critical of the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), including South African participation therein, reaffirmed the unchanging nature of the UN episode and the lack of consensus on the management of Antarctica. Key developments affecting Antarctica continue to occur away from New York: during 1990—91 the negotiations conducted at Vifia del Mar and Madrid for the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (PREP) and the measures agreed at the Bonn Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting proved the point. The critics of the ATS were appeased by neither PREP and its mining prohibition nor the recent dismantling of the apartheid regime in South Africa.Two UN reports were published on the state of the Antarctic environment as well as the proposed establishment of a UNsponsored research station in Antarctica. One resolution adopted in December 1991 called for annual UN reports on the Antarctic environment, although fiscal and other considerations meant that the research station proposal was effectively shelved. Another resolution urged South African exclusion from ATS meetings. The tenth annual UN discussion on Antarctica is scheduled for the close of 1992. There exists growing evidence that the critical campaign is losing momentum, although it seems premature to anticipate Antarctica's imminent demise as an UN agenda topic.