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Barren ice
The Antarctic Plateau is 3,000 metres high, stretches above the dry valleys and is held back by the trans-Antarctic mountains. It is one of the most desolate and hostile places on earth. A few spots of lichens may grow within 200 miles of the South Pole and one or two adventurous snow petrels might come to the plateau to try make a nest, but when winter comes, no living thing moves up on the plateau. Even in the summer, temperatures average minus 30 degrees.. At one and a half times the size of Australia, it is the largest area of lifeless wilderness in the world. Even snow petrels must winter hundreds of miles north on the edge of the frozen sea.
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