Transportation Southern Ocean
Ports and harbors:
McMurdo, Palmer, and offshore anchorages in Antarctica
note: few ports or harbors exist on the southern side of the
Southern Ocean; ice conditions limit use of most of them to short
periods in midsummer; even then some cannot be entered without
icebreaker escort; most antarctic ports are operated by government
research stations and, except in an emergency, are not open to
commercial or private vessels; vessels in any port south of 60
degrees south are subject to inspection by Antarctic Treaty
observers (see Article 7)
Transportation - note:
Drake Passage offers alternative to transit through the Panama Canal
Transnational Issues Southern Ocean
Disputes - international:
Antarctic Treaty defers claims (see Antarctica entry), but
Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, NZ, Norway, and UK assert
claims (some overlapping), including the continental shelf in the
Southern Ocean; several states have expressed an interest in
extending those continental shelf claims under the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS) to include undersea ridges;
the US and most other states do not recognize the land or maritime
claims of other states and have made no claims themselves (the US
and Russia have reserved the right to do so); no formal claims have
been made in the sector between 90 degrees west and 150 degrees west
This page was last updated on 18 December, 2003
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@South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Introduction South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
Background:
The islands lie approximately 1,000 km east of the Falkland Islands
and have been under British administration since 1908, except for a
brief period in 1982 when Argentina occupied them. Grytviken, on
South Georgia, was a 19th and early 20th century whaling station.
Famed explorer Ernest SHACKLETON stopped there in 1914 en route to
his ill-fated attempt to cross Antarctica on foot. He returned some
20 months later with a few companions in a small boat and arranged a
successful rescue for the rest of his crew, stranded off the
Antarctic Peninsula. He died in 1922 on a subsequent expedition and
is buried in Grytviken. Today, the station houses scientists from
the British Antarctic Survey. The islands have large bird and seal
populations, and, recognizing the importance of preserving the
marine stocks in adjacent waters, the UK, in 1993, extended the
exclusive fishing zone from 12 NM to 200 NM around each island.