I really enjoyed this afternoon. We started by listening to a B.B.C Radio 4 Woman’s Hour interview entitled ‘Women in the Antarctica’. As we listened, I displayed images from Gemma Clarke’s (sadly no longer live) and Alex Gaffakin’s websites via a PowerPoint. Searching Flickr also comes up with some beautiful photos of Halley and its surrounding location.The interview discussed their experiences at the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Base.

I think it was interesting to have a female perspective of life in Antarctica and the challenges it brings, after all the heroic man talk… funnel anyone?

The interview is excellent because it discusses at the everyday life in Antarctica and some of the scientific activities that take place, it allowed us to consider the issues of Ozone depletion and Global Warming, and the reasons why Antarctica is such a good place for scientific research. It also discussed some of the challenges of maintaining appropriate living and working space, Halley is up for a rebuild, as I discussed earlier in the blog. It also linked nicely with our discussion of ice sheets and the development of ice shelves.

We also took the time to look at the position of Halley and the range of other research bases on the continent, through our upgraded Google Earth, thanks Nick! This link provides a Google Earth file with the current research stations, a clear geographical distribution here, I wonder why, the place mark labels also provide links to available websites and the summer and winter populations.

After this we then went onto discuss resource exploitation, of course mineral exploitation is banned till 2041, with the exception of scientific purposes, under the Antarctic Treaty. Firstly we defined the term natural resource, as one being from the earth and of value to man, we then  discussed why resource exploitation would be difficult anyway, common-sense really; climate, landscape, working conditions, inaccessibility etc and why exploitation may become cost-effective in the future.

A resource such as oil is non-renewable, therefore finite, as it runs out prices will rise, potentially making exploitation cost-effective.

Many of our natural resources, such as oil, come from politically unstable regions, Antarctica presently doesn’t have this problem, though the value of such natural resources may make this problematic in the future.

If global warming does result in environmental degradation on the continent, people may be more willing to accept the exploitation of natural resources on the continent.

A growing world population may demand the exploitation of natural resources in the region, to support improvements in quality of life.

Of course, there is a sustainability issue here, could any exploitation, see tourism, be possible without damaging the fragile ecosystem for future generations.

Changes in the climate of Antarctica may also make resource exploitation more cost-effective, warming of the continent, may make drilling, accessibility and working conditions more suitable; but of course, this is balanced with the potential subsidence of the land due to melting ice sheets and permafrost, which will also result in flooding hazards. Such changes would have to be massive to be cost-effective and potentially would have huge environmental implications for the world. Another example of Antarctica’s interdependence with the rest of the world.

A very thoughtful discussion and then some resource mapping!

Thank you for the late homeworks, back again to your old quality :), though I need to catch up with some people who were away.

Please remember that your work must be original and not cut and pasted, a good Geographer will be able to draw out the relevant information and package it in a readable format!

Now, no copying bus tickets…

On my last legs, sorry the lessons aren’t inspiring, though I never promised they would be!

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Posted in Extreme Environments, Lesson evaluations, Resources
Written on Tue, 12 December 2006 at 9:02 pm

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