Jacques Cousteau and his crew bring the viewer on an exploration under the perennial ice of Antarctica. The underwater life is bizarre, the underwater ice forms surreal images.
View Beneath the Frozen World - Cousteau in Antarctica. Video hosted on Youtube. Antarctica is the fifth largest of the Earths seven continents. The southernmost, coldest, windiest, highest, most remote, and most recently discovered continent, it surrounds the South Pole, the point at the southern end of the Earths axis. Almost completely covered by ice, Antarctica has no permanent human population. The continent is ringed by the Southern Ocean. The entire area south of the Antarctic Convergence, which serves as the northern boundary of the Southern Ocean, is referred to as the Antarctic region. Antarctica means opposite to the Arctic, the Earths northernmost region.
The continent is shaped somewhat like a comma, with a round body surrounding the pole and a tail curving toward South America. The round portion, lying mainly in the Eastern Hemisphere, makes up East Antarctica. The tail and its thickened base, located entirely in the Western Hemisphere, form West Antarctica. Antarctica lies 1,000 km (600 mi) from South America, its nearest neighbor; 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from Africa; and 2,500 km (1,600 mi) from Australia. Antarcticas latitude (location in relation to the equator) and high elevations make it the coldest continent. Air temperatures of the high inland regions fall below 80°C (-110°F) in winter and rise only to 30°C (20°F) in summer. The warmest coastal regions reach the freezing point in summer but drop well below in winter.
The last continent to be discovered, Antarctica remained hidden behind barriers of fog, storm, and sea ice until it was first sighted in the early 19th century. Because of the extreme cold and the lack of native peoples, forests, land animals, and obvious natural resources, the continent remained largely neglected for decades after discovery. Scientific expeditions and seal hunters had explored only fragments of its coasts by the end of the 19th century, while the interior remained unknown. Explorers first reached the South Pole in 1911, and the first permanent settlementsscientific stationswere established in the early 1940s. From that time the pace of exploration accelerated rapidly. Scientists continue to conduct research in Antarctica, and in recent years increasing numbers of tourists have visited Antarctica to appreciate the regions majestic scenery and wildlife.
Seven nationsArgentina, Australia, the United Kingdom, Chile, France, New Zealand, and Norwayclaim territory in Antarctica. Other nations, including the United States and Russia, do not acknowledge these claims and make no claims of their own, but reserve rights to claim territory in the future. Since 1961 the continent has been administered under the Antarctic Treaty, an international agreement to preserve the continent for peaceful scientific study.
 Cousteau Cousteau was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel (a lawyer) and Élisabeth Cousteau. In 1930 he entered the French Navy as the head of the underwater research group. He later worked his way up the ranks as he became more famous and more useful to the navy. In 1937 he married Simone Melchior, by whom he had two sons, Jean-Michel (1938) and Philippe (1940). In 1991, one year after his wife Simone's death of cancer, he married Francine Triplet. They already had a daughter Diane Cousteau (1980) and a son Pierre-Yves Cousteau (1982), born before their marriage. Cousteau died at the age of 87 of a heart attack while recovering from a respiratory illness. He is buried in the Cousteau family plot at Saint-André-de-Cubzac Cemetery, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France.
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