A major new study has produced the most comprehensive inventory yet of volcanoes concealed beneath Antarctica's ice sheet, providing researchers with an important new tool for understanding how geological processes may influence the future behaviour of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

On 17 January 1773, the two ships became the first known vessels to cross the Antarctic Circle. Commanded by James Cook and Tobias Furneaux, the expedition was searching for the supposed southern continent, but what the sailors encountered instead was a vast, hostile seascape of fog, ice and bitter cold

Antarctica is synonymous with ice today, but during the Late Cretaceous, around 90 million years ago, the continent looked dramatically different. New research led by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has revealed that wildfires regularly burned in forests growing close to the South Pole, making them the southernmost known wildfires ever identified on Earth.

The most comprehensive assessment yet of changes in the world's polar ice sheets, led by researchers from Northumbria University and supported by NASA, combined evidence from 42 independent satellite surveys spanning more than five decades. The findings show that the two ice sheets lost an estimated 11,309 billion tonnes of ice between 1979 and 2023.

The waters surrounding the South Orkney Islands have emerged as an important hotspot for recovering whale populations, prompting Antarctic tour operators to introduce a new vessel-speed restriction aimed at reducing the risk of ship strikes.

The Mackenzie Polynya, an area of open water or thin ice that persists within the surrounding winter sea-ice pack, forms in Prydz Bay. Although they may appear to be small gaps in the Antarctic sea-ice cover, polynyas play an outsized role in the Southern Ocean system. They are major sites of sea-ice formation, contributing to the production of dense, cold water that helps drive global ocean circulation.