The South Pole, finally, but which one!?!

I FINALLY MADE IT TO THE SOUTH POLE! 

 

The 2023 geographic pole marker with a compass with all points facing North also celebrates James Cook as being the first known person to cross the Antarctic Circle on January 17th, 1773.

I finally made it the actual South Pole on February 9th, but which one? There are actually three.

The first South Pole that I visited was the geographic South Pole located at 90 degrees South latitude. This is the Southern most point on Earth. If you draw a line through the Earth from it to the geographic North Pole, you create the axis that the Earth spins around.  Each summer, they hold the 'Race Around the World' that goes around the pole. It's silly, it's fun.

This geographic pole does not move, but the marker for it does. The station that I am working on and the marker for the pole are both built on an ice sheet that moves about 10m a year. Every January, they put up a new pole marker that is about 10m farther from station to mark the real location of the geographic pole.

The ceremonial South Pole marker

The pole at the ceremonial South Pole marker

The next South Pole that I visited was the ceremonial South Pole, just 700m away from the geographic South Pole. This area is specially setup for photos and only moved when it gets snowed it. It is a pole with a reflective ball on top. It is surrounded by the twelve flags representing the twelve nations that signed the original Antarctic Treaty – Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

A map with the location of the magnetic South Pole marker

The final South Pole is the magnetic Pole, just off the coast of Antarctica in the direction of Australia. The magnetic Pole is also a shifting target. This map shows how it has move over the last 120 years across East Antarctica. I am pretty sure I won't ever be visiting that one, but you never know. If you were to go to that, your magnetic compass should actually point north in every direction.

A collection of the oldest geographic South Pole markers 

 

 A collection of the newer geographic South Pole marker, sadly missing a few. 

 

A replica of this South Pole marker has been on my desk for the better part of a 15 years. This original marked the pole my first on the Ice.

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A close up of the oldest South Pole markers.