Q 01/05

Unlike the South Pole, the geographic North Pole sits on what?

A) Shifting sea ice over deep ocean

B) A permanently frozen island

C) The edge of the Greenland ice sheet

D) A submerged mountain ridge

Answer · why

A) Shifting sea ice over deep ocean

There is no land at all; the nearest, Kaffeklubben Island off northern Greenland, is about 700 km away.

Q 02/05

How deep is the ocean directly beneath the North Pole, as measured by a Russian submersible in 2007?

A) About 1,200 m

B) About 2,500 m

C) About 4,261 m

D) About 6,000 m

Answer · why

C) About 4,261 m

The Mir submersibles that took the sounding also planted a one-metre titanium Russian flag on the seabed on 2 August 2007.

Q 03/05

How many times a year does the sun rise at the North Pole?

A) Twice

B) Once

C) Every day

D) Never

Answer · why

B) Once

It climbs above the horizon around the March equinox, stays up all summer, and sets around September for six months of darkness.

Q 04/05

Kaffeklubben Island, the nearest land to the North Pole, lies off which territory?

A) Svalbard

B) Franz Josef Land

C) Ellesmere Island

D) Greenland

Answer · why

D) Greenland

The tiny Danish-Greenlandic island beats Canada's Cape Columbia by a few kilometres for the title of northernmost land.

Q 05/05

Which American sponsored the 1926 airship flight that first verifiably reached the North Pole?

A) Lincoln Ellsworth

B) William Randolph Hearst

C) Vincent Astor

D) John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Answer · why

A) Lincoln Ellsworth

Ellsworth flew aboard the Norge with Amundsen and Umberto Nobile on 12 May 1926; the same trio's Italian designer would crash the airship Italia two y...