Icebergs, whales and seals were clues to a southern landmass
There was exciting news recently about the discovery of a huge lava lake on a sub-Antarctic island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
It has rekindled a thought I have long had, and that is, who discovered that there was land at the far south of the globe? – W.
Captain James Cook circumnavigated Antarctica from 1772-75, and, although he never actually sighted land, he did record icebergs, which suggested there was a land mass to the south.
He published account of his discoveries, including descriptions of large numbers of whales and seals in the Southern Ocean, which sparked a gold rush of sorts.
With a high demand for oil from marine animals, from the late 1770s large numbers of European and North American private voyages brought back lucrative cargoes of oil from whales and seals, as well as the pelts of fur seals, from Antarctic.
One American sealer, Nathaniel Palmer, claimed to have sighted land in 1819, though this is doubted by many polar scholars.
The following year, on January 27 1820, Antarctica was finally found.
A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered an ice shelf at Princess Martha Coast that later became known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf.
The pair became the first explorers to see and officially discover the land of the Antarctica continent.
Incredibly, they beat a British expedition, captained by Edward Bransfield, by a mere three days.