Last updated at 10:42 28 November 2007

A new map of Antarctica which is expected to revolutionise research of the continent's frozen landscape has been unveiled, scientists said.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, NASA, the US Geological Survey and the US National Science Foundation unveiled the map at a press conference in Washington.

The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica uses NASA's state-of-the-art satellite technologies and provides a nearly cloudless view of the continent at a resolution 10 times greater than ever before.

The map has been heralded as the "the most geographically accurate, true-colour, high-resolution views of Antarctica to date," a NASA spokesman said.

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The map has been released as several territorial claims, including one by Britain, look set to be made.

Andrew Fleming, of the British Antarctic Survey, said: "The mosaic represents an important US-UK collaboration and is a major contribution to the International Polar Year."

The International Polar Year refers to the scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic.

"Over 60,000 scientists are involved in the global International Polar Year initiative to understand our world."

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I have no doubt that polar researchers will find this mosaic, one of the first outcomes of that initiative, invaluable for planning science campaigns."

Robert Bindschadler, chief scientist of the Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, said: "This mosaic of images opens up a window to the Antarctic that we just haven't had before."

"It will open new windows of opportunity for scientific research as well as enable the public to become much more familiar with Antarctica and how scientists use imagery in their research."

"This innovation is like watching high-definition TV in living colour versus watching the picture on a grainy black-and-white television."

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"These scenes don't just give us a snapshot, they provide a time-lapse historical record of how Antarctica has changed and will enable us to continue to watch changes unfold."

Researchers will be able to use the images to plan future scientific expeditions.

To construct the new Antarctic map, researchers pieced together more than a thousand images from three years of Landsat satellite observations.

The resulting mosaic gives researchers and the public a new way to explore Antarctica through a free internet site at http://lima.usgs.gov