[Paul Ward]

Hi ComputerGhost and welcome to the board.

Antarctica is in real terms little explored or researched - even now. It has been mapped and surveyed at the larger level, but it is so big that large areas are rarely if ever visited. Marie Byrd land is the most extreme of those areas.

Bases are built in the most scientifically and cost effective places. This means regions that are easy to reach. It is not thought that there is anything especially unique about Marie Byrd land that would make it worth while establishing bases there in an area that is just so far from anywhere else.

The area to the north is just open Pacific ocean, to reach Marie Byrd land by ship would mean extra travelling time and distance that is currently deemed unnecessary - so it is little explored.

There is an ice-core drilling project in the Eastern region over a period of three years from 2006, this is operated summer only from an encampment rather than a permanent base. Other recent science in the area has been of aerial surveys.

Due to its location, I think it likely that this region will always be one of the least visited parts of Antarctica unless some specific reason arises to change this - that something may be found is of course all the less likely as hardly anyone goes there!