The Mystery of the Marie Byrd Land
Antarctica, the southernmost continent in the world, with an area of approximately 14 million square kilometers, does not officially belong to any country. Although the existence of this continental mass had been assumed since ancient times, Antarctica was sighted for the first time only on January 27, 1820 by the Imperial Russian Navy officer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.
The first man to set foot there was the Anglo-American John Davis, on February 7, 1821.
During the 19th century there were some other expeditions on the Antarctic coasts, such as the one guided by Captain James Clark Ross (1839-1843), who mapped a good part of the continent's coast. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen explored its interior, reaching the South Pole on December 14, 1911.
However, for twenty more years Antarctica remained a mysterious, almost inaccessible, very difficult land to explore, since it was extremely dangerous just to reach its coasts with a sailboat, due to the constant presence of ice.
A significant progress in the history of Antarctic exploration was made by American admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd.
The explorer began his expedition (which was largely financed by John D. Rockefeller) in 1928, commanding a fleet of three airplanes and two ships.
Richard Byrd's base, called “Little America”, was located on the Ross Barrier, a large frozen area of the Ross Sea called the Ross Ice Shelf in English. The following year, Richard Byrd was the first man to fly over the South Pole (November 28, 1929, with a Ford Trimotor).
During this first Antarctic expedition (1928-1930), the American aviator carried out some exploratory flights in the land located east of the Ross Barrier, discovering some mountains, later called Rockefeller Mountains. The area was called Marie Byrd Land, after the name of his wife.
Richard Byrd returned to Antarctica in 1933 to complete Marie Byrd's exploration of Earth. He spent five months in absolute solitude in a weather camp and was later saved by a group of three men. This adventure was later described in his autobiography "Alone". During the second expedition the explorer Paul Siple advanced overland to the Fosdick Mountains and on some exploratory flights discovered the Ruppert coast (75 S – 141 W).
The third Antarctic expedition carried out by Richard Byrd began in 1939. Under order of the president of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 125 men who took part in it had the mission of establishing two bases in Antarctica: one on Charcot Island, and another in the proximity of Little America (68° 29' S, 163° 57' W). Indeed, it is strange the interest that the United States showed in the ice continent just on the threshold of World War II, when the Nazi power was growing and increasingly represented a threat in Europe.
During some exploration flights on Marie Byrd's Land, a volcanic mountain called the Executive Committee was discovered, whose largest volcano is Mount Sidley (4,285 meters above sea level), the highest in Antarctica, which had, however, already been discovered by Richard Byrd in 1934.
While the exploration of the ice continent continued, some countries had already claimed several Antarctic territories, unilaterally proclaiming their sovereignty.
The first to do so was the United Kingdom in 1908. The area that was claimed as its own was the land south of 50 degrees South latitude, between 20 and 80 degrees West longitude, with a total area of more than 1,700,000 square kilometers.
In 1923, the leader general of New Zealand (representative of the sovereign who was then, as still today, the king of England) was appointed governor of the Ross Sea, the area of ice pack already mentioned, which extends the length 160 east to longitude 150 west (below the 60th parallel) with a total area of 450,000 square kilometers.
In 1924, France also claimed sovereignty over a portion of Antarctica, based on the discoveries of the Frenchman Jules Dumont D'Urville in 1840. The requested land, which was named “Adelia”, was about 432,000 square kilometers in area.
In 1933, the United Kingdom continued to rush to declare sovereignty over other Antarctic lands. This time he did it through Australia, a country whose president, then, and still today, was the sovereign of England.
Sovereignty was declared, therefore, over an immense area: from longitude 45 to 160 east (except the Adélie land) and below the sixtieth parallel, for an approximate area of 5,896,500 square kilometers.
Therefore, the United Kingdom, already before the Second World War, had declared its sovereignty over some 8 million square kilometers of Antarctic land, corresponding, more or less, to 57% of the continent.
In December 1938, Nazi Germany declared its sovereignty over New Swabia, an area of 600,000 square kilometers between longitudes 20 East and 10 West. This territorial claim was ignored, mainly because Nazi Germany did not belong to the League of Nations and also because, after a few months, the territory of New Swabia was claimed by Norway along with other large lands, for a total of 2,500,000 kilometers squares.
In fact, this European country, after the explorations of the aviator Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen (1930), declared its sovereignty over the area that it named Queen Maud Land, in 1939.
It should be noted that Norway had already requested, in 1929, the sovereignty over Pietro I Island (243 square kilometers), located in the Bellingshausen Sea.
In 1940, Chile declared sovereignty over the portion of Antarctica between longitude 53 and 90 West, and three years later, Argentina did so over the area between longitude 25 and 74 West.
It is evident then that the lands claimed by the two South American countries partly coincide with the lands claimed by the United Kingdom. Consequently, at the end of the Second World War, seven sovereign nations (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Norway, Chile and Argentina) claimed sovereignty over as many areas of Antarctica.
Only one area, Marie Byrd Land, approximately 1,600,000 square kilometers (11% of the entire continent) in size, was not claimed by any sovereign country and is still, for all practical purposes, in 2010 still no man's land from the legal point of view.
In reality, the United States, since the end of the Second World War, demonstrated military control over Antarctica. In August 1946, Operation Highjump was carried out, directed by Admiral Richard Byrd, whose official goal was the consolidation of US operations in vast areas of the Antarctic continent.
Operation Highjump ended abruptly in February 1947, six months ahead of schedule. Richard Byrd himself, during an interview he gave to the International News Service information agency on the ship USS Mount Olimpus, which was later published on March 5, 1947 in the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, declared that the United States would have to remain in a state of “continuous alert” to face the possibility of a hostile attack coming from both poles.
According to some theories, not officially confirmed, the Nazis would have built some underground bases on the land of New Swabia, for example, the base called “211”. In his controversial interview, was Richard Byrd referring to a potential Nazi threat or even a supposed alien invasion?
In any case, the theory that Operation Highjump was intended to dismantle Nazi bases in New Swabia does not coincide with the actual destination of the fleet of 13 ships belonging to the main convoy, which arrived at the Bay of Whales, in the Ross dependency, on January 15, 1947, in an extremely remote area of the former New Swabia.
The United States then confirmed its military control in Antarctica in 1955, when it launched Operation Deep Freeze.
This deployment of forces, in which at least 7 military ships participated, took place mainly on Marie Byrd Land, where the United States also built a base called Byrd (80 South, 120 West).
Beginning in 1957, American scientist Charles Bentley explored the area around Byrd Base, particularly the Executive Committee volcanic mountain range and the Sentinel Mountains.
Also in 1960 the American military presence was maintained when the USS Glacier explored the coast of Marie Byrd's Land called Eight Coast.
Likewise, in the period from 1965 to 1995, the United States conducted several exploration expeditions on Marie Byrd Land, for example the WAVE Project (West Antarctic Volcano Exploration) or the SPRITE Project (South Pacific Rim International Tectonic Exploration).
Beginning in 1998, the United States used several non-permanent bases on Marie Byrd Land: Ford Ranges (1998-1999), Thwaites (2004-2005), and WAIS Divide (2006).
It is evident, then, that the United States, in addition to having been the first to explore Marie Byrd's Land, controls it militarily.
Why did they never make a specific claim to obtain their sovereignty?
In 1959, the countries interested in Antarctica met in Washington (USA) to decide the future fate of the world's southernmost continent, sealing the foundations of the Antarctic Treaty.
In addition to the seven countries that had already officially claimed sovereignty in Antarctica (United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Argentina and France), there were also Belgium, Japan, South Africa, the United States and the Soviet Union.
Apart from ratifying that the continent must remain free of military activities, it was established not only that territorial claims made until 1959 are not recognized internationally, but also that further claims will be suspended, but not prohibited.
In any case, seven other countries, namely Brazil, Spain, Peru, the United States, South Africa and Russia, reserved the future right to claim sovereignty over other portions of Antarctica.
In 1983, still within the scope of the Antarctic Treaty, negotiations began to regulate mining exploitation on the continent.
Although in 1988 the countries that signed the Antarctic Treaty reached an agreement to regulate mining exploitation on the continent, France and Australia announced that they would not ratify the agreement.
In recent years, scientific bases have proliferated in Antarctica. Currently there are 67 bases belonging to 30 countries. In theory, since territorial claims are not internationally recognized, any country or entity on the planet can establish a base anywhere in Antarctica without any apparent control over the activities carried out.
What can be the future of a continent that does not officially belong to any country but where any country or entity can establish bases and can easily hide the results of its scientific studies?
The unknowns are many, but one of the biggest is the mystery of Marie Byrd Land. Why has no country ever claimed sovereignty over it?
YURI LEVERATTO
