Atlas Antarktiki I [Atlas of the Antarctic, Vol. I]

Summary

T. E. Armstrong reviews the 1966 first volume of Atlas of the Antarctic, praising it as the first attempt to assemble and systematize Antarctic scientific knowledge cartographically. Its principal cutoff is 1963, with some later material. The volume contains maps and diagrams, while a companion text volume remains forthcoming. Introductory, general, and regional sections cover exploration history, mapping coverage, topography, natural phenomena, and regional and oceanographic topics. Examining land-ice and sea-ice coverage particularly closely, Armstrong commends the extensive compilation of observations and explanatory notes, but identifies missing dates for some ice-front positions and questions an estimate of summer pack-ice concentration along the Antarctic Peninsula’s eastern coast. He notes the fuller use of Soviet data, praises the cartographic production and useful place-name glossary, and finds the aerial photographs inferior in quality to the maps.