Carmen Land
Carmen Land was a mountainous region of Antarctica that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen believed to have discovered during his South Pole expedition between 1910 and 1912 . On a map of Antarctica published by him following the expedition, the area extended between the 86th and 84th parallel south east of the Queen Maud Mountains . The existence of the region was refuted by later expeditions.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the interior of the Antarctic continent was almost completely unexplored. At the time of Amundsen's expedition, for example, it was still unclear whether it was a single continent or two land masses separated by a connection between the Ross Sea and the Weddell Sea .
During the ascent to the South Pole , the achievement of which would secure an entry in the history books, Amundsen and his men looked down at the area between the South Pole and the coast from a height of over a kilometer. According to Amundsen, they saw an area on the horizon that extended at about 84 ° south latitude. On their way back from the South Pole in the direction of their Framheim camp on the coast, the group also sighted a high, bare mountain region at about 82 ° south latitude from their location at 81 ° 20 'south latitude. From the appearance of the sky above, they deduced that this land stretched from northeast to southwest. They assumed that it must be the area already sighted on the way to the Pole. Amundsen concluded from this that it was a contiguous area, which he then named Carmen Land after Don Pedro Christophersen's wife or daughter (both were named Carmen). Amundsen later wrote that on the basis of these observations, he was relatively certain that the area had to extend at least between 86 ° south latitude and its former position at about 81 ° 30 'south latitude - and perhaps even further to the northeast but it is not possible to mark the area in this size on his map. He contented himself with drawing the area between 86 ° and 84 ° south latitude as Carmen Land, the rest he called "Appearance of Land". As a result, the Carmen Land was found in atlases of the time.
The discovery of Carmen Land was seen as a major achievement of the expedition, as its existence seemed to prove that Antarctica was in fact a single, continuous land mass. In his 1912 book about the expedition, "Sydpolen" Volume II, Amundsen predicted that exploring the area would be a rewarding task for polar explorers. After the map was published, some even criticized him for his caution regarding the existence and dimensions of Carmen Land. One critic feared, for example, that a later polar explorer would claim the discovery of the country for himself.
More than a decade later, the Byrd Antarctic Expedition , led by the American Richard E. Byrd, reached Antarctica in 1928 . Starting from the Bay of the Whales , he began exploring and mapping the interior of the continent by air. In November 1929, the area around the Queen Maud Mountains was explored - also with the intention of investigating the Carmen Land described by Amundsen in more detail. On November 18, 1929, one of the planes set out to search for the area in the region indicated by Amundsen. The men flew 50 miles and could see at least 50 more miles, but could not see the area Amundsen had described. Another flight to the area, as well as a group that had set off with dog sleds for research purposes to the Queen Maud Mountains, could not discover the Carmen Land either. Byrd concluded that Amundsen was mistaken.
Thus the existence of the Carmen Land was refuted. It is believed that Amundsen was misled by the mirages or high ice press ridges in the area, which often occur in arctic snowy areas . But even if the Carmen Land itself did not exist, the conclusion drawn from it regarding the contiguous land mass of Antarctica was confirmed by later research.
Web links
- Carmen Land in the Norwegian Polar Institute database (English / Norwegian)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Roald Amundsen : The South Pole: An account of the Norwegian Antarctic expedition in the "Fram," 1910–1912 . John Murray, London 1912, p. 171 ( digitized version ).
- ^ Carmen Land (Antarctica). Norwegian Polar Institute , accessed August 24, 2016 .
- ↑ Many Sciences Aided by Byrd's South Polar Trip . In: Popular Science . tape 116 , no. June 6 , 1930, p. 26 ( Google Books ).
- ↑ a b Chris Turney: 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica . Counterpoint, 2012, ISBN 978-1-61902-137-2 ( Google Books ).
- ^ Eugene Rodgers: Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd's first Expedition to Antarctica . 1st edition. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis 1990, ISBN 0-87021-022-X , pp. 176, 204 .
- ^ Richard Evelyn Byrd : Exploring with Byrd: Episodes of an Adventurous Life . Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4422-4169-5 , pp. 99 ( Google Books ).
- ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0 , p. 267 .