Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and their effects on Antarctic seabirds by using excreta as a non-destructive biomonitoring tool have received little consideration. Here we determine the levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and some organochlorine pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs), hexachlorobencene (HCB), heptachlor, and endrin aldehyde in penguin excreta. Animal exposure to these environmental contaminants was determined through porphyrins in penguin droppings. Stool samples of Adélie penguin (Pygoscelis adeliae), chinstrap penguin (Pygoscelis antarctica) and gentoo penguin (Pygoscelis papua) were collected on two locations of the Antarctic Peninsula area: Base O´Higgins (Antarctic Peninsula) and Ardley Island (King George Island). Despite POPs have been banned more than three decades ago, the levels (ng g−1 ww) of PCBs (1.45-2.35), DDTs (1.33-1.76), HCB (0.51-1.70), endrin (0.48-0.71) and heptachlor (0.97-2.40) showed that these pollutants are still present in Antarctica. Porphyrin levels in excreta (4.6-6.7 nmol g−1 dw) were significantly correlated to POPs, indicating certain chemical exposure on penguin colonies that inhabit the Antarctic Peninsula area. The levels of heptachlor found in penguin guano may be affecting some biota in terrestrial sites next to nesting places. Further studies and better understanding of POPs impact on animal performance in Antarctic biota are recommended.

Potential Adélie penguin Pygoscelis adeliae breeding habitat in the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT: 45°E–136°E, 142°E–160°E) was mapped using a geographic information system (GIS), and the literature reviewed for evidence of the mapped habitat being searched for presence or absence of breeding Adélie penguins. It is concluded that incomplete search effort is a possible source of substantial negative bias of Adélie penguin breeding abundance derived from published count data in some regions of the AAT. The extent of search effort in other regions of Antarctica could be determined using the same approach applied here, because GIS data required for mapping potential habitat are available for the entire continent. We would expect that regions with more scientific and tourist activity, such as the Antarctic Peninsula, are likely to have greater search effort than the AAT.

This article focuses on one potential motivation for a state's behaviour in international affairs, namely status-seeking, in order to shed light on Norway's Arctic politics and to discuss the role of hierarchies in Arctic politics more generally. The idea that a state's political elite seek national security and economic gain is well established in international relations (IR) literature. However, another key motivation of human behaviour – seeking status and respect – is frequently overlooked as a potential factor shaping states’ behaviour. The argument begins with a brief review of post-cold war Arctic politics followed by a discussion of the status-related literature in IR. Norway's position in the Arctic Council (AC) and in bilateral relations with Russia is then examined, with particular attention paid to the extent to which other Arctic states acknowledge and confirm Norway's status claims. Norway's status as an information provider, a convener and a bridge to Russia gives the country a degree of influence in Arctic multilateral settings. Given the Arctic region's relatively peaceful nature and the emphasis on circumpolar cooperation, space has been made for creative approaches to status. Size and military or economic greatness are not always decisive factors for taking a lead in today's Arctic politics.

It is much easier to doubt than it is to believe in the existence of prehistoric hunters on Svalbard. Few researchers categorically deny the possibility of early settlers in this region, yet fewer still advocate the possibility. Since Christiansson and Simonsen (1970) presented artifacts discovered on Svalbard that may date from the Stone Age, no one has undertaken further serious survey work for prehistoric settlements on Svalbard.

In this article the research history of prehistoric archaeology on the archiepelago is reviewed, the artifacts from the Christiansson and Simonsen study are re-examined, and the results of field surveys conducted in Bellsund during the summer of 1997 are presented. The investigation produced a negative result. The test area was one of the richest and most stable contemporary hunting areas on Svalbard, and it is proposed, therefore, that this survey provides a qualified basis for concluding that circumpolar hunting groups did not settle in Svalbard.

Although archaeological studies focusing on 19th-century sealing have been performed over the past 30 years, its history and sites have traditionally had low visibility in Antarctic narratives and the Antarctic Treaty System policymaking on heritage. Researchers face the challenge of increasing the visibility of sealers’ history and public awareness of the importance of conserving the oldest sites of Antarctica. In this paper, we propose that identifying patterns of tourism activity in the South Shetland Islands, specifically in their temporal and spatial dimensions, could help protect these sites and engage visitors with the early history of Antarctica. Data collected by the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators were used to calculate landing point usage trends over time and the frequency of passenger landings from 2003–2004 to 2015–2016. We defined six different visitation patterns with temporal tendencies of passenger landings that varied from increasing, constant, or decreasing trends over time, differing in the magnitude and intensity of visitation. This information was used to assess the situation of particular sites located in the vicinity of tourism landing points. We set priorities for their conservation and management decisions and highlighted their relative potential to engage visitors with the stories of 19th-century sealing in Antarctica.

Climate warming is occurring most rapidly in the Arctic, which is both a sentinel and a driver of further global change. Ecosystems and human societies are already affected by warming. Permafrost thaws and species are on the move, bringing pathogens and vectors to virgin areas. During a five-year project, the CLINF – a Nordic Center of Excellence, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, has worked with the One Health concept, integrating environmental data with human and animal disease data in predictive models and creating maps of dynamic processes affecting the spread of infectious diseases. It is shown that tularemia outbreaks can be predicted even at a regional level with a manageable level of uncertainty. To decrease uncertainty, rapid development of new and harmonised technologies and databases is needed from currently highly heterogeneous data sources. A major source of uncertainty for the future of contaminants and infectious diseases in the Arctic, however, is associated with which paths the majority of the globe chooses to follow in the future. Diplomacy is one of the most powerful tools Arctic nations have to influence these choices of other nations, supported by Arctic science and One Health approaches that recognise the interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment at the local, regional, national and global levels as essential for achieving a sustainable development for both the Arctic and the globe.

A century ago geologists first began to consider the possibility of large lateral shifts of the continents. Reconstructions of the ancient positions of the continents have been proposed at various times since to try to explain past climatic zones, faunal distributions, similar orogenic sequences and structural trends on adjacent continents, and many other detailed geological events. Prominent amongst the hypotheses is that generally known as the Continental Drift Hypothesis, developed independently by F. B. Taylor and A. Wegener fifty years ago and later modified by A. L. du Toit andothers. In this hypothesis two primeval continents, Laurasia and Gondwanaland, are supposed to have formed at the north and south poles, to have broken up and possibly to have grown, and the pieces to have drifted to the positions of the present continents. The continents are moved around by forces of unknown origin and their interaction with each other and with the substratum gives rise to orogenesis. Due in large part to the lack of any known forces capable of producing these movements the hypothesis is nowadays less favoured than others requiring no drift. Recently, however, the study of palaeomagnetism has provided an independent line of evidence. From it the ancient latitudes and orientations of the continents can be worked out and relative displacements may possibly be revealed.

Russian and Australian primary sources were examined in an attempt to reconstruct the voyage of the first composite Soviet Antarctic expedition to Antarctica and from thence to Leningrad [St Petersburg]. This expedition had the aim of constructing a base for the Soviet International Geophysical Year (IGY) commitment. In a time of cold war tension and unresolved Antarctic claims, the Australian and New Zealand governments were wary of Soviet intentions and barely tolerated visits by Soviet expeditions. However, in their interactions with Australians and New Zealanders, the Soviets were careful to underline the friendly nature of their visits and avoided any sensitive political questions. The two governments’ apparent lack of enthusiasm for Ob and Lena entering their ports after fulfilling their task in Antarctica is contrasted with the generally more enthusiastic attitude of the Australian and New Zealand scientists and expedition members, with whom the Soviet personnel came into contact, some of whom developed lasting scientific relationships with the visitors.

Recent advances in rock magnetism have established the value of measuring the direction of the remanent magnetism of many kinds of rock. Provided certain conditions are satisfied, individual measurements relate to magnetic pole positions and sufficient measurements give a mean position which may indicate the geographical pole. Thus from determinations of a number of samples of rock from a geological formation, with suitable corrections, the latitude and geographical orientation of the rock at the time when it assumed its magnetic field may be postulated. This restricts and, in due course, may define palaeogeographical reconstructions and so serve to identify movements of the crust in relation to each other and to the poles. Results so far obtained show that averaged pole positions from successive rocks, ranging through many hundreds of millions of years in the same relatively undisturbed areas, lie on curves extending through many tens of degrees of arc. Moreover, similar curves, uniting near the present poles today but diverging considerably when traced backwards in time, derive from different continents, suggesting that both relative continental movements and polar wandering must be taken seriously. From the pattern of pole positions from dated rocks it may be possible to correlate rocks of unknown age (e.g. unfossiliferous and Pre-Cambrian rocks), and solve some petrogenetic problems.

Although indispensable for hastening the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, United States policy entailed contradictions that jeopardised its domestic ratification. Many senators opposed their government's adherence to the Hughes Doctrine of 1924, requiring sovereignty claims to be based on occupation rather than exploration. US exploration, they knew, had covered more territory than the combined total of the seven nation-states that already had declared their rights based on criteria other than occupation. The Department of State appreciated that public opinion, whether related to Antarctica, the Cold War, or both, might generate congressional pressure to reverse the non-claimant stance and thereby derail the 12-power negotiations even before they reached the conference stage. This article presents evident and hypothetical consequences of policymakers' refusal to address this dilemma, the likelihood of which accompanied an increasingly pro-claimant stance among journalists, as well as the personal exasperation of Admiral Richard E. Byrd.

The small island of Tuppiap Qeqertaa, formerly known as Tobias Ø or Tobias Island, is situated 80 km off the northeast Greenland coast. The island was discovered in 1993 and is approximately 2 km long and 1.5 km wide. Most of the island is covered by an ice cap that rises to 35 m above sea level, as determined by airborne laser scanning. High-quality geodetic GPS measurements determine the position of a small cairn erected on the island to 79°20′34.48′′ N, 15°46′31.23′′ W. Minor parts of the island are ice free, with small hills of gravel. Late Holocene shells of marine bivalves have been found and were presumably brought up by ice floe push. Shell fragments of southern extralimital marine invertebrates point to the presence of pre-Holocene deposits. Three species of moss are the only land plants that have been found on the island.

Polar research teams often spend extended periods of time away from base stations, living and working in remote field camps of portable tents. This article reports results of a survey study conducted in 1996 of polar researchers from the United States. The study was about the design and use of portable field tents being deployed in polar areas with regard to safety, health, and well-being from the user's perspective. Preliminary analysis indicates that there existed a number of areas in design and use of the shelters that contributed to concerns of safety, health, and well-being among a considerable number of tent users. The article concludes with suggestions for designing and manufacturing portable field tents.

The vast expanses of tundra and taiga stretching from Kol'skiy Poluostrov to Chukotka have long been utilized by small ethnic groups with a chiefly northern economy—reindeer husbandry, hunting, fishing, sea mammal hunting. At present, judging by the data of the all-Union census of 1970, their total number is a little over 150 000. The peoples of the north include the Nentsy, formerly Samoyed (28 705), Evenki, formerly Tungus (25 149), Khanty, formerly Ostyak (21 138), Chukchi (13 597), Eveny, formerly Lamut (12 029), Nanaytsy, formerly Gol'd (10 005), Mansi, formerly Vogul (7 710), Koryaki (7 487), Dolgany (4 877), Nivkhi, formerly Gilyak (4 420), Sel'kupy, formerly Ostyak Samoyed (4 282), Ul'chi or Ol'chi (2 448), Saamy or Lapps (1 884), Udegeytsy (1 469), Eskimosy (1 308), Itel'meny (1 301), Kety, formerly Yeniseians (1 182), Orochi (1 089), Nganasany (953), Yukagiry (615), Negidal'tsy (537), Aleuty (Itogi,1973, p 21–22) (441); and also some not accounted for in the census— Entsy (300), Oroki (400) and Chuvantsy (700) (Novaya zhizn', 1967, p 7–9)

This paper lists accounts of whaling voyages to the Arctic from British ports, dating from the early 17th to early 20th centuries, that are available as logbooks, journals or publications for study in British, Canadian or United States public institutions. Included are all original whaling logbooks and journals located by the authors, mainly but not exclusively from previous listings, plus early publications by whaling masters, mates, surgeons and others in the trade containing details of particular voyages, and later accounts based on edited versions of holograph manuscripts. Records of whaling voyages are of intrinsic historical and sociological value, and many include data on weather and sea ice conditions that are of particular relevance to current studies of climatic variation.