Talk:Geography of Antarctica

message: Removes from Antarctica article:
Area - comparative:
slightly less than 1.5 times the size of the US
I took that out because it seems to suggest Wikipedia is a U.S. publication, which it isn't, it is a worldwide encyclopedia. Besides, of those who don't live in the U.S., how many know the area it consumes? The United States is not the centre of the universe, you know. - Mark Ryan
:So what can we compare areas to that won't be equally arbitrary?  Or do we just state them in units (km^2 or mile^2)?  Pakaran (ark a pan) 18:19, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed U.S. comparison 

message: I note that the article mentions that Paulet Island and Lindenberg Island are regarded as active volcanoes. I am not sure about Paulet Island, but the activity of Lindenberg Island is based on a report by Nordenskjold (1902) which was not confirmed by later expeditions, and is now suspected of being erroneous. I will check this out when I have a chance, but I am pretty sure that (despite being marked as active on the "Tectonic Map of the Scotia Arc") Lindenberg island is not active. --APRCooper (talk) 21:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Volcanoes of Antarctica 

message: The article says: "the ice is so massive that it has depressed the continental bedrock in some areas more than 2.5 km below sea level". Even granted that the bedrock is indeed 2.5 km below sea level, what is this statement supposed to imply? That the bedrock would be above sea level if the ice were not there? That the bedrock would be, perhaps, only 2 km below sea level if the ice were not there? Backspace (talk) 04:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The weight of the ice is pushing the rock down; the crust of the Earth is pushed down into the space where the upper mantle would otherwise be.  See Isostatic depression and isostatic rebound for what happens when the weight is removed.  -- SEWilco (talk) 04:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh.. the article already has a copy of the latter link.  -- SEWilco (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, those articles explain a lot of things that I didn't know, but I'm still trying to get a general idea of how Antarctica would look if the ice were removed, both immediately, and with respect to the forces in those linked articles, at eventual equilibrium, i.e., which parts would be under water and which parts would be land. Backspace (talk) 07:50, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Depression of land

message: I am a little unhappy about the fact box listing minerals as natural resources, for the following reasons. First, there are no PROVEN mineral resources in Antarctica at all. Of course, given the size of the continent, it is very likely that they exist, but at present there are no proven resources. Second, there is a moratorium on mineral exploitation, so no mineral resources can be proven for the foreseeable future. Thirdly, as less than 0.5% of the continent is accessible to geological exploration (the rest is covered in ice averaging nearly 2km thick), the commercial constraints on exploitation make it unlikely that minerals could be extracted commercially. Studies have been done on this last point and it has been shown that it would be uneconomic to exploit a resource of the value of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa if it were in Antarctica.
Note that there is a big difference between noting the presence or absence of a mineral and it's being present in exploitable quantities. For example, deposits of coal are found in the Transantarctic Mountains, and these have been known since the days of Scott's expeditions. However, there is no evidence that the coal is present in exploitable quantities, and given the tectonic setting it is probably unlikely that it is. 
If there is no response to this, I will remove the minerals from the Natural Resources box.--APRCooper (talk) 10:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The continent does have a large amount of water, but that's already mentioned somewhere.  If there are known amounts of minerals they'll get listed, just as some articles list tar sands and other presently unusable resources.  It's easy to do the math and know there is a lot of something in any continent, but here we need to know what specific deposits have been found.  Yes, some coal is known, but we'd need to know whether it is an isolated deposit or one which extends for hundreds of kilometers.  -- SEWilco (talk) 17:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Natural resources 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified