Antarctica & Polar Biome Educational Posters & Art Prints
for social studies classrooms, home schoolers, travelers & explorers

The Bellingshausen Sea is named for Russian naval officer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen (b. 9-20-1778, Estonia; d. 1-13-1852) who commanded the second Russian expedition to circumnavigate the globe. During this expedition Bellingshausen became one of three Europeans to first see the continent of Antarctica on January 26-7, 1820. The second was Edward Bransfield, a captain in the British Navy, just 3 days later on 1-30-1820.

The Icebreaker Nathaniel B. Palmer and Palmer Station, located on Anvers Island north of the Antarctic Circle, are named for the first American, seal hunter Nathaniel B. Palmer (1799-1877), to see Antartica on November 17, 1820. Connecticut born Palmer was also a captain and owner of trading clipper ships in the mid 1800s. The first documented landing

Antarctica's Mount Erebus (12,448 ft), the southernmost active volcano on Earth, is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Erebus is located on Ross Island and first observed by polar explorer James Clark Ross in 1841.

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The first dinosaur (a Antarctopelta oliveroi) ever discovered in Antarctica was found on James Ross Island in 1986; since then several other dinosaur fossils have been found in Antarctica.

James Ross Island (JRI), a large island off the southeast side and near the northeastern extremity of Antarctic Peninsula, should not be confused with Ross Island in McMurdo Sound. JRI was charted in October 1903 and named for Sir James Clark Ross, leader of a British expedition. The Weddell Sea is named for British naval captain James Weddell (1787-1834).

In December 1839, the Charles Wilkes expedition (EX EX) sailed from Sydney into the Antarctic Ocean and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands" at about the same time as French naval officer Jules Dumont d'Urville.

French naval officer Jules Dumont d'Urville, explorer of the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica, named the coast he sighted in 1837 after his wife Adelie. The French research station is named Dumont d'Urville Station.

• Natural Phenomenon posters

Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian polar explorer, led the first successful Antarctic expedition to the South Pole between 1910 and 1912.
b. 7-16-1872; Norway
d. c 6-18-1928; plane crash during an attempted rescue

• The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 1910-1912

Robert Falcon Scott, a Royal Naval Officer, was the second to reach the South Pole after Roald Amundsen. Scott and his companions perished on the trip back to their base camp.
b. 6-6-1868; England
d. 3-29-1912; Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

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• Journals: Scott's Last Expedition

Irishman Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton's most famous expedition to the Antarctic was an attempt to cross the continent from the Weddell Sea south of the Atlantic, to the Ross Sea south of the Pacific, by way of the Pole.

He and 28 member crew set out from London in August 1914 on the Endurance which was eventually trapped by pack ice and finally broken on 27 October 1915 in the Weddell Sea. The crew members fled to Elephant Island (named for the elephant seals) with three small boats; then Shackleton and five other men managed to reach the southern coast of South Georgia Island in one of the boats. Shackleton was able to rescue all of the stranded crew from Elephant Island without loss, more than two years after embarking from London, and in the middle of the Antarctic winter, with the help of the Chilean Navy.