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Location of the Magdalena Oldendorff
11 June - 20 July, and 29 July - December 2002
This map was scanned from an original in the SPRI Library. It dates
from 1963, and also shows geophysical traverses carried out during the
South African National Antarctic Expedition, 1960-69.
The S African
base SANAE was then on the ice shelf (tiny black triangle) but SANAE IV
has now been built on a nunatak called
Vesleskarvet at 71 40 S, 02 51 W. [Map scan edited]
On 21 January 1820, the Russian admiral Thaddeus von Bellingshausen [1778-1852] sighted an icefield from 69°25'S and 1°11'W "which seemed to be covered with small hillocks". Without knowing it, Bellingshausen had made the first sighting of the continent of Antarctica. His ships were the the Vostok and Mirnyi. Later the same year, Nathaniel Brown Palmer, and Edward Bransfield, also claimed to have seen the continent.
