ABSTRACT
Present understanding of the remote and inhospitable Antarctic Ocean has developed in an episodic fashion. The pioneering voyages were those of Cook, in the late eighteenth century, and those of Bellingshausen, Wilkes and Ross half a century later. The CHALLENGER, VALDIVIA, BELGICA, GAUSS, SCOTIA and TERRA NOVA played a leading rôle before and after the turn of the century. This was followed by the era of DISCOVERY II when intensive studies were made of Antarctic baleen whales and their environment. After World War II there was the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in which the Soviet vessels OB and VITIAZ were prominent. The momentum of the IGY was continued by the U.S. National Science Foundation vessel ELTANIN. Meanwhile, at laboratories on shore, studies proceeded at a steadier pace, mainly on breeding colonies of birds and mammals and on nearshore communities on the sea floor, in the water column, and embedded in the ice.
