Geographic Exploration

Recent decades have seen exciting expeditions to both poles. British geologist Vivian Fuchs and Mount Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary used snow tractors to make the first crossing of Antarctica from 1957 to 1958. Using snowmobiles, British explorers Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton were the first to cross both the North Pole and the South Pole on a single circumnavigation of Earth in the 1979-1982 Transglobe Expedition.

Scientists are also hard at work in the polar regions. Researchers from various nations stay in Antarctica year-round and there is a permanent American base at the South Pole itself. In the 1980s Antarctic scientists noticed an alarming hole in Earth’s protective ozone layer, a discovery that led to international initiatives to phase out the production of harmful chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Little new seems to remain under the classic definition of geographical “first discoveries” although there are still a few mountains unclimbed, rivers unnavigated, and caves unfathomed. Explorers seeking fame must now try to reach remote destinations by difficult or unusual means: by going solo, by running, by hang-gliding, or by mountain bike. Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner and Austrian climber Peter Habeler scaled Mount Everest without using bottled oxygen in 1978, and British climber Alison Hargreaves became the first woman to do so in 1995. In 1986 Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager took nine days to fly around the world nonstop and without refueling in their specially built aircraft Voyager. In 1999 Swiss scientist Bertrand Piccard and British pilot Brian Jones made the first nonstop circumnavigation of the world by balloon, crowning a decade of attempts by an array of international teams.

In scientific exploration, however, the amount to be discovered seems almost infinite. Possibly millions of species are as yet unrecorded, while many others have received only basic recording or description. At the same time, people are still learning how the oceans and land habitats function. There is more than enough to explore and discover for many generations to come.