Ninety percent of the world’s ice 70 percent of the world’s fresh water is locked in antarctic glaciers up to two miles thick If those glaciers were broken up there would be enough to supply every person on earth with an ice cube as large as the Great Pyramid Antarctica doubles in size in the winter as sea ice spreads out from its coast 4
On its surface Antarctica is a frozen desert But beneath the sea ice lies a strange oasis home to an amazing variety of animals and plants that thrive in sub-freezing water sheltered by the ice that covers their home like a glass roof 5
A DOORWAY IN THE ICE Nature photographer Bill Curtsinger has traveled to this frozen continent to dive in its frigid waters and learn about creatures able to live in water that is as cold as it can be without freezing An Emperor penguin watches new arrivals
Bill and a research team board a helicopter at McMurdo Station the main center for scientists in Antarctica The helicopter will drop them off 50 miles away near the edge of frozen McMurdo Sound Bill Paul Dayton from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and two other dive partners partners plan to study and photograph the animals that live on the bottom of the Southern Ocean the benthic life When you dive in Antarctica Antarctica you can’t just tumble off the side of a boat First you must drill through 5 to 10 feet 2 or 3 meters of sea ice In the past divers used chain saws and dynamite to create diving holes Today they use machine-powered augers Bill and his team land near a breathing hole left by a Weddell seal The seal had found a crack in the ice and chiseled a hole with its sharp protruding teeth to reach the surface to breathe This makes the divers first task easier all they have to do is enlarge the seal’s hole 7
