Geologically the youngest of the oceans, the Southern Ocean was formed roughly 30 million years ago when Antarctica and South America moved apart, opening the Drake Passage.

One of the last seas on the planet not to have been harmed by human activity, the Ross Sea is a deep bay of the Southern Ocean between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land, and was discovered by James Ross in 1841. To its west is Ross Island with the Mt. Erebus volcano and, to the east, Roosevelt Island. The southern part is covered by the Ross Ice Shelf and at its closest point it is only around 200 miles from the Geographic South Pole. It boasts both an incredible biological diversity and a long history of human exploration and scientific research. Amundsen set off on his South Pole expedition in 1911 from the Bay of Whales at the Ross Ice Shelf.