Antarctica

A Bulgarian team of geologists found Antarctica fossils of plants from the "youth" of our planet - proof that the white continent was once green.

One of the tasks to our Antarctic expedition was a detailed study of the rocks of Cape Hannah. It is 12.5 km straight from Hurd Peninsula, where the Bulgarian Antarctic Base "St. Kliment Ohridski" is located.

Turkey is set to deploy a large team of scientists to Antarctica, the world’s fifth largest continent, to assess the feasibility of establishing a scientific base in order to meet the criteria needed to upgrade its status from non-consultative to consultative party in the Antarctic Treaty.

"Bulgarian scientists, supported by the state, recognized the immense importance of Antarctica decades ago," said President Rumen Radev in his address to the members of the 26th Bulgarian Antarctic expedition days before the researchers left for the Bulgarian St. Kliment Ohridski Researchers' center on the Livingston Island.

Adventurous travelers are most likely to boast stamps in passports from any continent, perhaps with the exception of Antarctica. The most fearless might include in their plans and travel to the icy land. But today scientists believe that the most ambitious travelers in the world already have eight continents to set foot on.

A hole as large as Lake Superior or the state of Maine has opened up in Antarctica, and scientists aren’t sure why it’s there.
The gigantic, mysterious hole “is quite remarkable,” atmospheric physicist Kent Moore, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus, told me over the phone. “It looks like you just punched a hole in the ice.”

In the near 50-100 years, the climate in Bulgaria will get closer to the African one, which will affect agriculture. This was said by Prof. Hristo Pimpirev, Director of the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute, quoted by expert.bg.

In his words, Antarctica is the kitchen of the entire planet.

A giant iceberg twice the size of Luxembourg has broken off an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula and is now adrift in the Weddell Sea.

"It is a really major event in terms of the size of the ice tablet that we've got now drifting away," said Anna Hogg, an expert in satellite observations of glaciers from the University of Leeds.

One of the largest icebergs ever recorded — 2,500 square miles is about to break off Antarctica, according to the European Space Agency. The iceberg could speed up the break-off of other ice chunks, eventually eating away at a barrier that prevents ice from flowing to the sea.

Researchers in Antarctica have discovered rapidly growing banks of mosses on the ice continent’s northern peninsula, providing striking evidence of climate change in the coldest and most remote parts of the planet.

Scientists have discovered massive landforms lurking under Antarctica – some as tall as the Eiffel Tower – and they’ve been actively carving deep channels into the ice flow above.