Exploration for resources

The search for economic resources led to the first sustained human interaction in Antarctica. Most early Antarctic expeditions through the 19th century had either direct or indirect economic incentives. For some expeditions, the search for new trading routes was the objective; for others, the objective was the opening of new fur-sealing grounds or the possibility of mineral riches. The exploitation of natural resources has been centred on the subantarctic and Antarctic seas and the coastal regions. From the late 18th century to the 1930s, whaling and sealing were the main economic activities in the Antarctic regions. After hunting decimated whale and seal stocks and the demand for these products decreased, whaling and sealing collapsed. Scientific exploration demonstrated that while mineral riches exist in Antarctica, the conditions for profitable extraction do not, and over time scientific activities became the main political and economic activity in Antarctica. Natural resource exploitation on the continent has thus far been limited to biological prospecting (that is, extraction of bioactive compounds for commercial uses, such as for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics). Tourism, while still largely confined to the Antarctic Peninsula, has expanded inland as far as the South Pole.

Mineral resources

The geology of Antarctica is known sufficiently well to allow rather certain prediction of the existence of a variety of mineral deposits, some probably large. The fact that none of significant size, besides coal in the Transantarctic Mountains and iron near the Prince Charles Mountains of East Antarctica, are known to exist is largely the result of inadequate sampling. With exposed rock estimated to form less than one-half of 1 percent of Antarctica’s land area, the probability is practically nonexistent that a potential ore body would be exposed. Moreover, whereas generations of prospectors have combed temperate and even Arctic mountains, it was mostly reconnaissance parties on scientific missions who visited Antarctic mountains.

The high degree of certainty that mineral deposits do exist is based on the close geologic similarities that have been observed between areas of Antarctica and mineral-rich provinces of South America, South Africa, and Australia and on the scientific consensus about the configuration of the Gondwana landmass during Mesozoic times. The gold-producing Witwatersrand beds of South Africa may correspond to the terranes of western Queen Maud Land. The young mountain belt of the copper-rich South American Andes continues southward, looping through the Scotia Arc into the Antarctic Peninsula and probably beyond into Ellsworth Land. The mostly ice-covered areas of Wilkes Land may parallel the gold-producing greenstone belts and platinum-bearing intrusions of southwestern Australia. The Dufek Intrusion, an immense layered gabbroic complex in the northern Pensacola Mountains, is geologically similar to, though much younger than, the Bushveld Complex of South Africa, which is a leading producer of platinum-group metals, chromium, and other resources. Scientific expeditions have found valuable minerals in some of these Antarctic areas, including antimony, chromium, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, tin, uranium, and zinc. None approach a grade or size warranting economic interest. Also noneconomic are the very large deposits of coal and sedimentary iron. Because of the high costs of polar operations, few conceivable resources—excepting those with high unit value such as platinum, gold, and perhaps diamonds—have any likelihood for exploitation.

Offshore resources of petroleum, however, are a different matter. The finding of gaseous hydrocarbons in cores drilled in the Ross Sea by the Glomar Challenger in 1973 aroused considerable international interest. Since the late 1970s, oceanographic research ships of many nations, including France, Germany (West Germany until 1990), Japan, and the United States, have undertaken detailed studies of the structure of the continental margin, using the sophisticated geophysical techniques of seismic reflection and gravity and magnetic surveys (see also Earth exploration). Thicknesses of sedimentary rock needed for sizable petroleum accumulations may occur in continental-margin areas of the Ross, Amundsen, Bellingshausen, and Weddell seas and perhaps near the Amery Ice Shelf, and some may also exist in inland basins covered by continental ice, particularly in West Antarctica. It seems unlikely, however, that fields of a size needed for exploitation are present. If found, any petroleum extraction would be difficult but not impossible in the offshore areas, as technologies have been developed for drilling for and recovering petroleum in Arctic regions. However, iceberg drift and moving ice packs would affect drill ships and platforms more severely than in the Arctic. Icebergs are commonly far larger than those in the Arctic and have deeper keels; they scour the seafloor at deeper levels and would be more likely to damage seafloor installations such as wellheads, pipelines, and mooring systems. These problems, though great, are far fewer than those that would be encountered in developing inland mineral resources of any kind. Thus, although petroleum is generally considered to be the most likely prospect for exploitation in Antarctica, there is little potential for its development before reserves are consumed from more accessible areas throughout the world. Even if accidentally found through scientific studies, mineral resources cannot currently be commercially explored or exploited under the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.