By CLAY LARROY
When you choose to travel, whether it is for business or
pleasure, it is important to plan your trip well before hand. Here are some
tips to help you. Don't be afraid to cash in your airline miles. Many travelers
let their miles accumulate and never bother using them. Reap the rewards of
your traveling and spend the miles you've earned! Miles have expiration dates,
so be sure to use them before they expire. When you need to plan
a vacation contact me!
ANTARCTICA
It is a land with little soil, where 96% of its
mass is covered in ice, with no indigenous people, no indigenous government. No
economic activity exists, except for that in small isolated encampments of
scientists and from the incursion of tourism to the island continent.
Antarctica is a land of many superlatives. It
is the driest place on earth, it is the coldest. Its land mass forms the
largest desert on the planet. Its average precipitation is the lowest anywhere,
and its mean elevation the highest of any other continent. It is the
southernmost continent, its 14 million square miles almost entirely contained
within the Antarctic circle, 620 miles south of the coast of South America. It
is the windiest place on earth, the most remote. It has no time zone, since all
time zones converge in its interior. There are no non-indigenous animals - no
dogs, cats or other pets - as a matter of treaty. Over the continent, an
atmospheric anomaly - a giant hole in the earth"s ozone layer.
The
name Antarctica is derived from the Greek word antarktikos meaning
"opposite to the Arctic." In 1959, a group of twelve countries
devised the Antarctic Treaty - that document, now signed by forty-five
countries, prohibits activities of a military nature or any commercial mining
operations. Seven nations claim territories ( UK, Norway, Chile, France,
Australia, Argentina and New Zealand) and two others, (the United States and
Russia) have reserved the right to do so. The Antarctic treaty neither
recognizes nor contests those claims. Today, more than more than 4,500
scientists work there conducting research not possible anywhere else. The
population tends to be seasonal, increasing to over 33,000 in its summer. In
2006, more than 28,000 tourists visited, carried there by the approximately 25
ships that have regular routes through the region.
Antarctica is the fifth largest continent,
larger than both Australia and Europe. The Transantarctic Mountains split the
continent in half. The ice pack averages a thickness of over one mile. Nearly
85% of the world's ice and 75% of the world's fresh water is frozen
here - if it were to melt, ocean levels would rise approximately 200 feet; the
Antarctic Peninsula has experienced an accelerated warming over the past 50
year of almost 5 degrees Fahrenheit, causing ice pack and glacier melt and the
appearance of plant life where none was previously recorded. Every visit to the
continent will reflect its changing environment.
At one
time, Antarctica was much further north. Fossils of trees, plant life and
dinosaurs have been found, and large deposits of low-grade coal are present.
Additionally, scientists have discovered more meteorites in concentration there
than in any location in the world, many of which originated on Mars and have
given tantalizing hints of life elsewhere in the solar system.
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