teachers’ dossier /02 History Languages Geography Science Belare: the station was not built in a day! I N T ERN AT I O N A L POLAR FOUNDATION TABLE OF CONTENTS THEORETICAL NOTE 3 1) IDENTITY KIT OF THE PRINCESS ELISABETH STATION 3 2) Belare 2004 – SITE SURVEY EXPEDITION 4 Selection of the location 4 Field activities 4 3) BELARE 2005 – LOGISTIC SURVEY EXPEDITION 6 Field activities 6 Coastal report 7 4) BELARE 2006-2007 – SITE PREPARATION EXPEDITION 8 The Ivan Papanin 8 The expedition encounters serious difficulties along the way! 8 5) BELARE 2007-2008 – STATION CONSTRUCTION EXPEDITION 10 First team and first phase 10 Second phase 11 Third and final phase 12 6) BELARE 2008-2009 – FIRST SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION 13 EDUCATIONAL NOTE 14 1) NOTE FOR THE TEACHER 14 2) OBJECTIVES 14 Geography 14 Foreign Languages & History 14 Cross-subject final attainment levels 14 3) SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES (ALSO SEE THE WORK SHEETS FOR PUPILS) 15 1) Crossword puzzle and related essay 15 2) Other 15 ATTACHMENTS 16 AttACHMENT 1: MAP OF ANTARCTICA 16 SOURCES 17 WEBSITES 17 BIBLIOGRAPHY 17 OTHER 17 dossier n° 2 / Belare: the station was not built in a day! p / 2 THEORETICAL NOTE 110 years after the Belgica expeditions and 50 years after the construction of the first King Baudouin Station (see pedagogical dossier ‘Belgians in Antarctica through the centuries’), the International Polar Foundation marked a new era for Belgium in Antarctica with the realization of the first ‘zero emission’ research station: the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) base! But how does one start such a project? Which steps need to be taken? Is it possible to build a station without having been to the site beforehand? Setting up such a project requires a lot of preparations. These preparations have been done during the BELARE-expeditions (BELgian Antarctic Research Expeditions). This second pedagogical dossier will carry you through the exciting adventure of the BELARE-expeditions. 1) IDENTITY KIT OF THE PRINCESS ELISABETH STATION First “zero emission” Antarctic station – 100% renewable energy – Wastewater treatment – Sustainable technologies – End of life disassembly Figure 1: The Princess Elisabeth Station 20 23 30 40 The New Belgian Antarctic Station 50 – 180 km inland Utsteinen – Built on the ridge of the Utsteinen nunatak (mountain) 71° 57’S 71 – Lifespan: 25 years minimum 85 80 75 23°20’E – An average of 12 staff members, 20 maximum – 1,500 m² usable space – Summer station but year-round activity Figure 2: The location of the Princess Elisabeth Station There were good reasons for choosing a summer station and for carrying out the expeditions only during the austral summer1. The reasons2 for doing this are: – During the summer the Antarctic days are longer. On the 21st of December the sun doesn’t set below the Antarctic Circle (lat 66° 33’ 39’’). On this day the sun shines for 24 hours. The PEA base will be located at a latitude of 71°57‘ South. Since its location is more southwards, there will be several days with 24 hours of sunlight. This will make it possible for the expedition members to work longer. Every year, there is a period of complete darkness for about three months. – The rotational axis of the Earth slightly deviates from the perpendicular with respect to the plane of its elliptical orbit around the sun. This is known as the ‘obliquity of the ecliptic‘. It is responsible for monthly and seasonal differences in the angle of incidence of light which is in turn responsible for seasonal differences in temperature. – During the summer the temperature in Antarctica is much higher, which makes work more pleasant for the crew. – Finally, the continent is inaccessible during winter due to the high volumes of thick pack ice3 floating in the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica. Furthermore, air transport comes to a complete standstill during this season. Those who decide to stay behind in the station would be left to their own devices for at least eight months. 1 The austral summer is the summer on the southern hemisphere (December-January) and is the counterpart of the boreal summer on the northern hemisphere (July-August). 2 The animations are bundled together in the CD-ROM “Polar Regions and Climate Change” which can be ordered or downloaded for free on the website www.educapoles.org. 3 Pack ice is a synonym for sea ice. dossier n° 2 / Belare: the station was not built in a day! p / 3 2) BELARE 2004 - SiTE from the strong autumn katabatic winds9. It is also situated near the old King Baudoin Station (180 km SURVEY EXPEDITION away) and the Japanese Asuka Station, which were closed in 1967 and 1992 respectively. Equipment, such as snow tractors, wooden beams, etc. from the Date: From November 25th to December 4th, 2004. Asuka Station can be easily recycled and reused Objectives: Choosing a suitable location for building during the next BELARE expeditions. the station and carrying out the first field activities But where exactly in this mountainous area should the on-site. new station be built? In order to answer this question, Crew: Nine expedition members: Alain Hubert4, Johan eight different locations in an area of 300 km² are Berte5, Luc Deleuze (architect), Nighat Amin6, Frank nominated as a potential home station. Subsequently, Pattyn7, Maaike Vancauwenberghe8, Kazuyuki Shiraishi all members compare the different locations for (a geologist at the NIPR (National Institute for Polar the station keeping various parameters in mind: Research), Tokyo), Kenji Ishizawa (in charge of logistics, geological features, accessibility, safety, availability NIPR, Tokyo), and Shigeo Shiga (a technician from of drinking-water, wind-force, etc. And the winning Komatsu Ltd., a Japanese company that manufactures location is: Utsteinen! The Princess Elisabeth station construction equipment) are divided into two teams, has a home! the Utsteinen team and the Asuka team. Utsteinen is located 300 m to the north of the Utsteinen nunatak, on a small, relatively flat granite ridge that The nine expedition members fly to Cape Town provides a stable station. The ridge – more or less where the last purchase of provisions and equipment in North-South direction – is 700 m long and a few takes place. From there they fly to Utsteinen with an meters wide. It rises 20 m above the surrounding intermediate stop at the Russian Antarctic Station, the snow surface in the accumulation zone10. The area Novolazarevskaya Station (popularly called Novo). is located at 71°57’ South latitude and 23°20’ East Once on site, the team starts doing what it came longitude, only a few kilometres away from the Sør to do. The Asuka team evaluates the Asuka base, Rondane Mountains. The station is easily accessible which was abandoned in 1992. The Asuka base by plane and by various land vehicles. There is also looks like an abandoned junkyard. Vehicles are soft snow in the area, which can be easily melted scattered around the station. Year after year, the into drinking-water. And last but not least, there is a noses of the vehicles point more towards the ground relatively constant wind in the area. down because the snow melts away under the front of the vehicles. This is caused by the heavy weight of the engines, the summer/winter seasonal cycles and Base Roi Baudouin the absorption of solar radiation. It’s as if the snow is engulfing the vehicles. Icicles hang inside the tractors, forming an «ice curtain» in front of the driver’s cabin. Kenji and Shigeo evaluate the situation and imagine what the station must have looked like in the past. In the meantime, the Utsteinen team chooses the location of the future station and selects the field activities. Asuka Station ( Japan ) Selection of the location Whereas in the past, the Belgian King Baudoin Utsteinen bases were built on the shores, from which the inland expeditions were organised. Now the engineers have chosen to build inland, in the very heart of the region where many future PEA scientists will conduct field work. Figure 3: Satellite image of the Sør Rondane Mountains, the coastal area and 190 kilometres inland from Breid Bay on the coast, the location of the former King Baudoin Station and Asuka Station the Sør Rondane Mountains rise above the immense masses of snow and ice. This mountainous area was Field activities chosen as the station site because it is well-protected Once the location is determined, the expedition members start to set up their station camp at the foot of Utsteinen and carry out field activities. 4 Co-founder of the International Polar Foundation (www.polarfoundation.org) and teamleader of the expedition (www. antarcticstation.org) 5 Project Manager for IPF (www.antarcticstation.org) 6 Programme administrator for IPF (www.antarcticstation.org) 7 Glaciologist at the ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) (www.ulb.ac.be) and advisor in the PEA project 9 Katabatic winds are strong winds that blow down slopes from higher inland areas to the lower coastal areas under 8 Representative of the Belgian Science Policy (Belspo, Antarctica-program) (www.belspo.be/belspo/home/ the weight of the cold layer of air and the influence of gravity. They can reach speeds up to 300 km/h. port_en.stm) 10 An accumulation zone is a zone where accumulation of precipitation such as snow occurs. dossier n° 2 / Belare: the station was not built in a day! p / 4 Figure 4: The station camp at the foot of Utsteinen nunatak First an Automatic Weather Station (AWS) is installed on the ridge in order to record the meteorological Figure 6: The GPS System conditions of the surrounding environment. The AWS measures various parameters such as air temperature, But it doesn’t end there.