Adelie Land

The Adélie Land (in French Terre Adélie) is a narrow sector of East Antarctica delimited by the meridians 136° E (near of Pourquoi Pas Point) and 142° E (near Alden Point), covering an area of about 432,000 km². Its coast corresponds approximately to the 67° S parallel. It corresponds to France's territorial claim in Antarctica, a claim that is restricted by the terms of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. This territory is included by France as one of the five districts of the Antarctic French Southern and Antarctic Areas (in French Terres australes et antarctiques françaises) and for that reason it is associated with the European Union.

This French claim forms a wedge with the Australian Antarctic Territory on either side, dividing it into two sectors. Australia and France agree that the Adélie Land extends between the boundaries of the sector claimed by France, but other countries call it the Adélie Coast and consider it part of the Wilkes Land, assigning slightly displaced boundaries to it. to the east, between Pourquoi Pas Point (66°12′S 136°11′E / -66.200, 136.183), border with the Clarie coast (or coast Wilkes), and Alden Point (66°48′S 142°02′E / -66.800, 142.033) at the western entrance to Commonwealth Bay, border with George V Land (or George V coast).

The French scientific bases Dumont d'Urville and Commandant Charcot are located there.

Geography

The territory covers a narrow sector of East Antarctica, bordered to the north by the Urville Sea, which is the name that France gives to the part of the Antarctic Ocean between meridians 136° and 142° East, which delimit the sector until they meet at the geographic South Pole. It is a territory covered by a thick layer of ice. The coast is about 350 km long, developing in the general east-west direction, always very close to the Antarctic Circle.

The average thickness of the ice in the form of inlandsis that covers the Antarctic continent is 2,500 m, with the maximum recorded thickness being 4,776 m on Adélie Land, more precisely in the area called Astrolabio basin (69°54′S 135°12′E / -69.900, 135.200), which is equivalent to almost 5 km of ice on some places of the rock structure of Antarctica. Thus, the greatest thickness of the current cryosphere of planet Earth is located in the Astrolabe basin of the Adelia Earth.

The south magnetic pole, whose position varies with the Earth's magnetic field, is located near the coast of Adélie Land.

On the coast of Terre Adélie is located, on the Petrel Island of the Pointe Géologie archipelago, the Dumont d'Urville scientific base with a staff of around thirty people, a number that doubles in summer.

Climate

The climate is polar, characterized by its low temperatures and violent winds, frequently loaded with ice particles, the "blizzards": towards the south the climate is extremely hostile, cold and scarce in precipitation, called polar desert .

Starting in March, the sea is covered with a layer of ice one to two meters thick, the pack ice, which covers an immense area, preventing navigation. The return of summer brings the fragmentation of the ice pack, which transforms into blocks of drifting ice.

History

Commanding the ships L'Astrolabe and La Zélée the commander of the French Antarctic Expedition, Jules Dumont D'Urville, discovered this region on January 20, 1840 and named it after his wife Adèle. The next day, on a high islet off the coast, he took possession in the name of France of the terres Adélie et Clarie. The Land of Clarie, to the west of the Adélie Land, turned out to be a mass of ice that then broke off and formed an iceberg. Later, the French expeditions of Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1903-1905 and 1908-1910) headed to other sectors of Antarctica.

France formally reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Adélie Land through 3 decrees of 1924. A decree of the Minister of the Colonies Edouard Daladier of March 27, 1924 regulated mining, hunting and fishing rights in the Crozet Archipelago and in the Adelia or Wilkes Land. On April 2, 1924, another decree placed these areas under the supervision of the Indian Ocean Naval Division. On November 21, 1924, a district (austral district) dependent on the province of Tamatave was created, under the jurisdiction of the governor general of Madagascar and Dependencies, including the Adélie Land and the southern archipelagos. On October 24, 1933, the French Government, by means of a note, proposed to the British Government limits for the Adélie Land between the meridians 136° E and 147° E, but it rejected them on April 13, 1934, proposing the meridians 136° 30° E. #39; E and 142° E. After new exchanges of notes, the limits of the territory were fixed by a decree of the French president of April 1, 1938.

(...) the islands and territories located south of the 60° south latitude parallel and between the meridians of 136° and 142° east of Greenwich, fall under French sovereignty.

After the Second World War, during which the strategic value of Antarctica became evident, several countries, including France, sent expeditions to create bases on this continent to improve the security of their territorial claims.

The French polar expeditions organized by Paul-Emile Victor) in 1947, carried out three successive wintering and two summer campaigns between 1948 and 1953 in the Arctic and Antarctica. The polar ship Commandant Charcot left Brest on November 26, 1948 under the command of Captain Max Douguet, but on February 22, 1949 it was trapped in the ice and this first Antarctic mission was aborted. On September 20, 1949, the ship began a second Antarctic mission and on January 20, 1950, the French set foot on Adélie Land again after 110 years. A first station was built, Port Martin, where 11 expedition members remained, but Following a fire on the night of January 23 to 24, 1952, it was later transferred further west, on the Petreles Island of the Punta Geología archipelago. The new station, named Dumont d'Urville Antarctic Base in 1956, is still in operation and includes around thirty people, a staff that doubles during the summer.

On August 6, 1955, the law was promulgated that created the overseas territory of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, including the Adélie Land and abrogating the jurisdiction of the governor general of Madagascar. To govern it with administrative and financial autonomy, a senior administrator (administrateur supérieur des Terres australes et antarctiques françaises) with the rank of prefect was appointed. His headquarters were in Paris until 2000, when he passed to Saint-Pierre in Réunion. The administrator is assisted by a 13-member advisory board.

Between July 1, 1957 and December 31, 1958, France participates in the International Geophysical Year with the Dumont d'Urville and Charcot bases. On December 1, 1959, France signed the Antarctic Treaty, which came into force on June 23, 1961. Numerous scientific studies are carried out in Adélie Land, French or within the framework of international collaborations (with Russia and the United States in particular).

The Dumont d'Urville base is connected by tracked vehicles with the new Concordia base established on the continental plateau, near the Adélie sector of the Earth, and created in collaboration with Italy for astronomical studies (the implementation of telescopes and radio telescopes), geophysical and climatological (in particular, that of the magnetosphere, study of the upper atmosphere, climate warming, and the ozone layer), or fundamental physics (capture of high-energy particles).