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Who was the first person on Antarctica?

Historians are unsure who first set foot on Antarctica. Antarctica is the fifth largest continent, covering 10 percent of the Earth's surface with its area of 5.4 million square miles (14 million square kilometers).

Between 1773 and 1775 British captain James Cook (1728-1779) sailed around the circumference (boundary) of the continent. American explorer Nathaniel Palmer (1799-1877) discovered Palmer Peninsula in 1820, without realizing that it was attached to the Antarctic continent. In the same year Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (1779-1852) sighted the Antarctic continent.

American sealer John Davis went ashore at Hughes Bay on February 7, 1821. In 1823, sealer James Weddell (1787-1834) traveled the farthest south across Antarctica (74 degrees south) than anyone had until that time and entered what is now called the Weddell Sea. In 1840, American Charles Wilkes...

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1. Characteristics
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   2. How much of the Earth's surface is land and how much is water?
   3. What are the highest and lowest points on Earth?
   4. What are the highest and lowest elevations in the United States?
   5. Which elements are contained in the Earth's crust?
   6. How does the temperature of the Earth change as one goes deeper underground?
   7. What is the interior of the Earth like?
   8. What are the major eras, periods, and epochs in geologic time?
2. Land
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   2. Do the continents move?
   3. What and where is the Continental Divide of North America?
   4. Are there tides in the solid part of the Earth as well as in its waters?
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   6. How is "speleothem" defined?
   7. What is the difference between spelunking and speleology?
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   2. What causes waves in the ocean?
   3. Where are the world's highest tides?
   4. How deep is the ocean?
   5. What fraction of an iceberg shows above water?
   6. Why is the sea blue?
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   16. Where is the "Circle of Fire"?
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4. Ice And Ice Ages
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   2. What is a moraine?
   3. How much of the Earth's surface is permanently frozen?
   4. How thick is the ice that covers Antarctica?
   5. Who was the first person on Antarctica?
   6. When was the Ice Age?
   7. If all the ice in the world were melted, how much would the oceans rise?
5. Mapping The Earth
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   2. What is the prime meridian?
   3. What is Mercator's projection for maps?
   4. Which direction does a compass needle point at the north magnetic pole?
   5. What is Foucault's pendulum?
   6. Who was the first person to map the Gulf Stream?