With a surface of 13,5 million square kilometers, also sixth so called continent turns out to be divided geographically by the Mountains Transantárticas, in Antarctic Oriental - more ancient geologically - and Antarctic Western. The latter, who understands(includes) precisely the Antarctic Chilean one, includes a continental sector that, under the form of a peninsula its advances towards the austral South American extremity, prolonging the Mountain chain of the Andes; and a sector archipelagic, Shetland, Orkneys, Sandwich of the South, and other islands, remaining separated from her(it) for only approximately 990 kilometers of the step Drake.

I dress from a satellite, this vast continent estimates cutlery of a thick(bulky) cap of ice, accumulated there by millenniums. For it, the altitude I mediate in the great central plateau, its is of 1.680, meters. Its higher summit is the mount Vinson, (4.897 meters) of the Chain Sentry or mounts Ellsworth.

Antarctic its supports in his area 70 per cent of the water of the planet, or saying of another form, 90 per cent of the whole ice.

Obviously, the ice constitutes the most typical element of the Antarctic landscape; this thick and heavy mantle slips with slowness from the center of the plateau towards the periphery. Beyond the coast, the frozen mass forms extensive "barriers" or parts with the glaciers transforming in gigantic floes (or icebergs) that float to mercy of the marine currents and strong winds.

The sea that the Antarctic one surrounds, acquaintance as Austral Ocean, freezes between March and September approximately. Its rocky continental platform is narrow - with 30 km from average - and four times deeper than in other continents, owed probably to the enormous weight of the coastal ice.