flNjTflRCiTIC A NEWS BULLETIN published quarterly by the NEW ZEALAND ANTARCTIC SOCIETY (INC)

Mr R.B. (Bob) Thomson, (left). Director of New Zealand's Antarctic Division outside Sir Ernest Shackleton's hut at Cape Royd's. He was with Lord Edward Shackleton on his visit to the hut from which his father attempted to reach the South Pole some 77 years earlier. - Photograph Antarctic Division.

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.»iH3i/*rjNvsmnos .. VI9H039 Hl/tOS (successor to 'Antarctic News Bulletin)

Vol. 10, No. 12 120th Issue December, 1985

Editor: Robin Ormerod, P.O. Box 2110, Wellington Address all contributions, inquiries to the editor CONTENTS POLAR ACTIVITIES NEW ZEALAND 422 AUSTRALIA 430 CHINA 431 ITALY 433 SWEDEN 435 UNITED KINGDOM 436 UNITED STATES 439 SUB-ANTARCTIC 447

OTHER ACTIVITIES

WHALE SURVEY 448 GREENPEACE 449 AUSTRALIAN YACHT 452 FOOTSTEPS OF SCOTT 453 LORD SHACKLETON 457 BOOKS 459

ISSN 0003-5327

© New Zealand Antarctic Society (Inc.) 1978 No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without the prior permission of the publishers. ANTARCTIC December, 1985 New Zealand field work begins

Persistent bad weather bringing poor visibility to the McMurdo Sound area disrupted flights from Christchurch to Antarctica and delayed the start of some of the New Zealand and United States base programmes and field events. The season opened officially on October 1 but no aircraft were able to land until October 4. By October 17 only nine of the planned flights had reached McMurdo. The weather then improved. Seven of the 11 man winter over Richardson, a supervisor of works team returned to Christchurch on with the Ministry of Works and October 7 after a year of isolation. Development. Initial clearing of The last of the party to leave was snow from the site was undertaken by the doghandler Kevin Conaglen from AJ\ Thomson of the Scott Base New Plymouth. His handover trip summer-staff and army construction to Cape Evans, Cape Roberts and the team supervisors Sergeant Wayne Blue Glacier with the dog team and Bryce, and Lieutenant Doug Gibbons. new handler Richard Balm from Arthurs Pass was disrupted when Sergeant Bryce is an instructor they had to remain at Cape Evans at the Trade Training Troop School for two days because of the weather. of Military Engineering at Linton The early survival courses were either Camp and Lieutenant Gibbons is a also postponed or curtailed because troop commander with Three Field of the poor visibility at the training Squadron at Burnham Camp. The site. site was resurveyed by Vince Belgrave The official handover of the base (Wellington) and Phil Winters from the winter party to the summer (Gisborne) who are also providing staff occurred on Sunday October surveying assistance to a number of 6 at 4 p.m. when Peter Cresswell of scientific projects. Christchurch took over from winter Construction of the building, which leader and postmaster Leo Slattery. is Stage VI of the project and com Peter Cresswell was officer-in-charge prises the carpenter's shop, electrician of Scott base last summer. and base engineer's workshop and Early priorities for the season machine shop, is the task of ten was the drilling of two boreholes members of the 1 and 3 Field in the Wright Valley as part of the Squadrons of the Royal New Zealand U.S./N.Z. seismic programme and Engineers. They began in mid- the surveying and preparation of the November and hope to have com site for the construction ot the new pleted the shell, or exterior of the light workshop complex at Scott building by mid to late January. Base. Another team will return to Scott Supervision of the design and Base at Winfly in August of 1986 to construction of the new building finish the interior. Equipment will is the responsibility of Mr Allan be installed next summer. December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Equipment for the season's drilling by Dave Earl, radio operator, Kevin projects was transported in two trips Jenkins, drill supervisor and drillers by cargo train from Scott Base. Both Max Williams and Wayne Little. were led by Garth Varcoe buildings They left Scott Base on October 19 and services officer with Antarctic at 7 a.m. and reached Butter Point Division. at 8 p.m., camping there to dig out The first trip of the season carried and load other equipment left from fuel and science equipment for the the previous season before going on to Waikato University, N.Z. Geological Marble Point from where Garth Survey project to obtain core samples Varcoe and Dave Earl subsequently from the floor of the Marshall Valley. returned to Scott Base. The samples will be used to study the From Marble Point the equipment chronology of successive Ross Sea was airlifted to the drill site 4.2 km glaciations. east of Vanda Station just below Equipment for the project left Bull Pass on the northern face of Scott Base on Saturday, October the Wright Valley. The required 12 for Cape Chocolate and was 42 helicopter flights were made be carried on two sledges hauled by a tween 29 October and 8 November. D5 caterpillar tractor. NZ1, the first of the new wannigans was carried DRILLING on the third sledge. It is equipped with six foldaway bunks, table, chairs, Working in two shifts from 8 a.m. storage space and a gas cooker and is to 4 p.m. and from then to midnight carpeted. It was manufactured for the drill team which also included Antarctic Division by Redpath Pat Cooper and Graham Brown used Industries of Levin and delivered as the Longyear 44 drill. They com part of the resupply cargo at the pleted the first hole of 100 metres end of last season. A snow trac in eight days. It was 7%" in diameter accompanied the tractor train. and produced a core, composed Although Cape Chocolate is 50 km mostly of granite, of 6W. The hole from Scott Base ice conditions caused required to be not more than 3 degrees a 10km detour and the trip was made off vertical was drilled .31 degrees in ten hours at about 10 km an hour error. A second hole of 30 metres in temperatures of -15 deg C. was completed in six days on Visibility at times was very restricted. November 30. Accompanying Garth Varcoe were Linda Harrison, Scott Base informa SEISMOLOGY tion officer, Chuck Neels, radio The holes will house seismometers operator and field assistant Peter from which data will be transmitter Brailsford. All are from Christchurch. via repeater stations at Mt. Newa] Forty-five thousand pounds of drill equipment, fuel, drilling fluid and Crater Hill to Scott Base. It will be recorded on equipment to b and camp equipment were subse installed in the physical sciences quently transported by cargo train from Scott Base to Marble Point in laboratory and stored for subsequent mid-October in preparation for the transmission to the data collecting centre of the Geological Survey Centre joint DSIR/U.S. Geological survey seismic project in the Wright Valley. at Alberquerque in the United States. Leader of the team was again Drilling equipment was returned via Garth Varcoe who was accompanied Marble Point to Butter Point in readi- ANTARCTIC December, 1985

ness for the second stage of the CIROS During three weeks between late project next season. October and mid-November Dr Chris In 1984/85 the CIROS 2 hole Adams and Pam Whitla of the Institute cored units of well sorted sand and of Nuclear Sciences, DSIR, Wellington laminated sand-mud "couplets". These collected approximately 50 samples were unusual lithologies in a glacial of microschists and other metamorphic moraine sequence. rocks from the Lower Wright Valley and mid-Victoria Valley near Lake EXPLANATION SOUGHT Vida for dating by rubidium-strontium methods. Scientists from Victoria University The samples were sent to the sought this season to explain this Institute for crushing. Preliminary feature. Working with a gravity corer xray fluorescence analysis has begun. with a 30 cm diameter they obtained This will give the rubidium-strontium samples from the sea floor near the ratio which in conjunction with outfall of two meltwater channels on strontium isotropic measurements the Ferrar Glacier and compared the will provide data from which the age sediments. The channels contained can be calculated. The results should sorted and bedded sand "bars" and assist in identifying the earlier phases larger rock debris. The samples of regional metamorphism before the comprised poorly sorted sandy mud emplacement of Granite Harbour with dropped pebbles and sand instrusives and the associated gneisses deposited by ice rafting. The wide and migmatites. dispersal of the sand settling in the Paul Fitzgerald of Melbourne Uni water column however contrasted with the well sorted sand in the Ciros core versity and Ken Woolfe of Victoria University spent two and half weeks and did not provide an explanation in the Beardmore Glacier area for it. collecting samples of granite from Led by Alex Pyne the team com exposed intrusions. They worked prised Andrew Macpherson and David from the U.S. Antarctic programme Kelly of Victoria University and Peter campsite on the Beardmore Glacier Dawkings, an Antarctic Division field and field camps established at Granite assistant. The specially designed and Pillars near the mouth of the built under water-camera with which Beardmore and on the Miller Range. they had planned to obtain photo Apatite contained in the granite graphs of features indicating sediment samples will be analysed using fission transport directions in McMurdo track dating techniques at Melbourne Sound posed technical problems. The University and should contribute to team also endeavoured to recover knowledge of the timing and rate of sediment traps moored on glaciers uplift in this area. in New Harbour and Granite Harbour as part of a joint project with Rice SEALS University. Although they found the anchors the traps were thought to Camping on the northern shore of have been lost through ice breakout. Razor Back Island Lincoln College Next season the team hope to study scientist Dr Graham Barrell assisted the vertical sediment flux in the area by Sandy Sandblom of Christchurch in co-operation with Rice University took blood samples and placed and in association with the CIROS melatonin implants in 17 lactating programme. seals. Blood was also taken from a December, 1985 ANTARCTIC further 17 seals for comparative Observations and photography of purposes. icebergs in the Ross Seas was con Melatonin is a hormone which is tinued by Denis Fowler DSIR and usually secreted under conditions of Karen Williams working for the darkness and is of particular interest Commission for the Environment. because in many animals it influences Flying in a northbound RNZAF the timing of seasonal events such as CI30 Hercules at 2,400 metres along reproduction. The role of the hor the middle of the fast ice strip off mone in the physiological processes the coast of Victoria Land in western of the Weddell seal, which reproduces Ross Sea they detected 315 bergs in conditions of full daylight, is between the Blue Glacier and the unknown. Nordenskjold Ice tongue. It is esti Further samples taken from 31 of mated that this would include bergs the 34 seals which could be found longer than 70 metres and approxi two weeks later and have been sent mately 70 percent all bergs present to Lincoln College for analysis. in the area.

An oblique aerial photograph of icebergs in the fast ice off Oates Piedmont glacier and Gregory Island taken with a 70 mm Hasselblad camera from an RNZAF C130 hercules flying at 2,400 metres. The large iceberg on the left is 3 km long and broke off from the Mackay glacier tongue in February 1983 and the tabular berg on the right has drifted from Cape Roberts which is to the south of the photograph. - Photograph: Denis Fowler, DSIR. ANTARCTIC December, 1985

Between 20 and 40 percent of the horizontal control network. With the bergs were in the same position as exception of a minor difference at the previous season and are therefore one point the survey showed little considered to be firmly grounded. change with no reversal of an No bergs recorded in the study area expansion recorded in 1984. The have been resighted outside of it. three tilt levelling patterns were On the basis of previous data relevelled but the changes bore little the net drifts of 23 further icebergs relation to the active vent. has now been determined. Most of Volcanic activity was found to have the activity can be attributed to decreased significantly since the pre the regional current setting north vious survey in December of 1984. along the Victoria Land coast in this A small lava lake of approximately area although one large berg had 20 in. in diameter was found in drifted west from near the site of the active vent. Four eruptions were DVDP 15. This has been attributed observed. Each consisted of a single to a current deflected by a submarine explosion some throwing bombs out spur in the area. of the lava lake. The two new vents MT. EREBUS observed in 1985 were found to be dormant. The annual deformation surveys of This was the sixth survey to be the Mt. Erebus summit area was made on Mt. Erebus as part of the carried out by Graeme Blick and International Mt. Erebus Seismic Roger Williams of the New Zealand Studies (IMESS)' The surveys are Geological Survey in Wellington. They designed to monitor ground surface were assisted by Peter Brailsford of deformations of the summit portion Antarctic Division. of the mountain which contains an On the summit for three days in active lava lake. This provides oppor temperatures of —15 deg C the team tunity to study possible ground made horizontal angle observations deformations associated with volcanic and distance measurements of the activity. Pilot underwater diving project

A pilot underwater diving pro fish feeding and the functions of gramme conducted by three members lateral lines. They also looked of an Auckland University team and further at aspects of vestibular reflex diving supervisor was successfully functions. completed in mid-November. Although Led by Dr John Montgomery the New Zealanders have dived in team comprised Dr John MacDonald, Antarctica before this is the first John Cargill and Gary Housley. They time New Zealand scientists have worked closely with Dr Brian Foster undertaken a programme such as and Tref Barnett for part of the project. this. All were from Auckland University The team were in Antarctica to Zoology department. The diving continue studies of fish feeding and supervisor was Steve Mercer of Agri cold adaptation. Focussing on the culture and Fisheries Department pagothenia borchgrevinki, studies were in Wellington who is a technical made of the role of zooplankton in advisor to Antarctic Division. December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

The pilot diving programme this south of the hole. season was largely a logistics exer cise the experience of which the LATERAL LINE team hope to use in future to further STUDIES their study. The divers were John Montgomery and John MacDonald As in all fish the function of lateral and Gary Housley. lines is very much in dispute. Although Using dry suits, neoprene raits, detection of prey is largely visual, standard dive weights and two sorts non-visual systems would be used in of regulators the team dived in pairs winter dark or turbid water. In the or with a standby diver. A life line borchgrevinki an anterior lateral line attendant was also present. system consists of 6 short dermal Each of the dives, made over canals on each side of the head, three days, was between 20 and 28 opening to the outside through a minutes duration. The first, for series of pores. Vibration sensitive orientation, was made from the neuromasts lie in the canals between USARP Hut 9, 150 m west of each pair of pores. Observation Hill in Erebus Bay. Working under acquarium condi Working down to 20 metres in water tions a vibrating probe was positioned temperatures of -1.9deg C the team in the water near the fish and the found the bottom, overlaid by silt, activity of the sensory neurons re shelved gently to an edge with a corded from the root of the lateral sudden drop off. It was rich in line nerve with glass micropipettes. invertebrate fuana. There were It was found that sensory organs large numbers of small benthic fish, functioned at between 30 and 50 T. bernachii predominated. cycles per second. Vibrations pro duced during swimming were also recorded from three species of SAMPLES Crustacea found in the diet of the borchgrevinki. The swimming On the second day diving Crustacea were attached to a strain operations were moved to the fish gauge and produced low frequency hut 1.5 km south of Scott Base over peaks at 3-6 hz with high frequency water 315 metres deep. Team peaks of about 40 hz. When an amphipod was suspended members dived individually with a near the head of the fish simultane stand-by diver and life line attendant. ous strain gauge and nerve recording Invertebrate fauna in the sub-ice confirmed the vibration produced by platelete layer was investigated and the crustacean swimming is a potent found to be sparse, pelagic amphipods natural stimula of the anterior lateral were collected from the ice crystal line. layer. Three photography dives were made. As a result of the experiments the team concluded that the anterior USARP fish hut No. 4 approxi lateral line of the borchgrevinki may mately 50 metres from the shore in Erebus Bay was the site of the diving play an important role in the close for the third day when further photo range co-ordination of feeding. graphy was undertaken and a Work on vestibular reflex activity pycnogonid (sea spider) with barnacles in the borchgrevinki was also was collected from a rocky sea floor continued. Vestibular reflexes are ANTARCTIC December, 1985 associated with balance. The purpose Working at the fish hut, and sites of the study is to investigate the pro off Horsehoe Bay and in Wohlschlag perties of brain function at very low Bay 110 plankton samples were temperatures. collected by Brian Foster and Tref Gut contents of seven borchgre Barnett who were assisted by Brian vinki, caught through the sea ice 1500 Smith, an Antarctic Division field metres south of Scott Base and 45 km assistant. By sampling different from the edge of fast ice were depths of the water column they weighed, identified and are still under collected enough samples for a data analysis. Initial results indicated that matrix of depth versus time against they were feeding on larger zooplank species, the results of which will be ton and other fish larvae. This work compared with other samples obtained was in conjunction with Brian Foster near the edge of the ice in the Sound. and Tref Barnett who undertook From the results they hope to build a sustained and replicated zooplankton a faunistic account of the zooplankton sampling programme to assess the which will be compared with other variation and occurrence of the dif world-wide studies of the role of ferent plankters. The teams hope to zooplankton and fish in temperate establish a planktivory of the borch inshore ecosystems. grevinki as part of the study. RNZAF logistic support

An RNZAF Iroquois helicopter has bright orange to match its US Navy spent six weeks in Antarctica. counterparts and its 15 man support Although the New Zealand airforce crew was flown to and from Antarctica has operated in the region for nearly on ice cube flights. The detachment 30 years this is the first time a heli known as "Operation snowbird" was copter has been sent south. from No. 3 Squadron and under the Seventeen return flights were made command of Squadron Leader B.L. by RNZAF Hercules transport aircraft Phillips, who is based at Hobsonville. of No. 40 Squadron flying as While in Antarctica the Iroquois "Operation Ice Cube 85" under the operated from McMurdo Station as joint New Zealand United States part of the U.S. VXE-6 operations logistic agreement. The first flight supporting field activities. Some of south left on October 5 and the the VXE-6 helicopters were based at last north on December 14. the Beardmore camp, 400 miles from Operation ice cube began in 1965. McMurdo, for a large part of the Before then the RNZAF had an season. The New Zealand helicopter Antarctic flight equipped with Auster was able to make up for some of the and Beaver aircraft which operated shortfall. It flew 91.1 hours. from Scott Base between 1957 and At a small ceremony near the end 1961. This seasons deployment of the of the operation No. 3 Squadron Iroquois was made under the logistics members were presented with agreement, of which operation ice Antarctic Service Medals and certifi cube is part. cates by the Commanding Officer of The Iroquois, nicknamed "Orange VXE-6, Commander Paul DeRoucher. Roughy" because it was painted To qualify for the medal, 30 days of December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

"Orange Roughy", the RNZAF's first Iroquois to serve in Antarctica, being unloaded from a No. 40 Squadron CI30 on October 27. continuous service in support of Operation Deep Freeze is required. The Starlifter drops time must be spent in service south of 60 degrees. New Zealand army personnel again 46 tonnes of cargo handled cargo loading and unloading More than 46 tonnes of mail, fresh operations at both Christchurch and food, and supplies were dropped to the McMurdo Station. 115 men and women at the Amundsen- Scott South Pole Station, McMurdo Footnote. Station, and Scott Base by a United In addition to its temporary orange colour States Air Force Starlifter which made the helicopter carried a picture of "Dog", two mid-winter flights from from Murray Ball's Footrot Flats cartoon, Christchurch on June 23 and 25. on one door. That came about after mem This was the seventh such drop in bers of the Canterbury Branch of the Antarctic Society wrote to Mr Ball, 10 years and the fifth to the South suggesting that as Dog had missed out on Pole. A KC10 tanker refuelled the a trip to South Africa, he might like to Starlifter on each flight. visit Antarctica to see the dogs there, and the penguins. Mr Ball agreed and the Operations were delayed twice Dog with his ears flying back appeared because of high winds, blowing snow, on the co-pilots door where he was in a and reduced visibility at McMurdo perfect position to obtain a birds view Station on June 21 and 22. On June of all that was happening in McMurdo Sound. The Footrot Flats cartoon series 21 the Starlifter encountered winds depicts aspects of New Zealand country up to 50 knots and zero visibility in life. Dog is one of the principal characters. the McMurdo Sound area. It flew over CONTINUED ON PAGE 446 ANTARCTIC December, 1985 Mercy flight to Davis ends tragically Three nations - New Zealand, the a 2000m strip of snow. United States, and the Soviet Union - Tests were made by members of responded to an Australian appeal the winter team every 10m along for aid to evacuate a badly burned 2000m of sea ice. It was found that man from Davis Station for specialist a landing was possible although at treatment. A United States ski- one point the ice thickness was just equipped Hercules flew 1454 nautical inside tolerance level for the Hercules. miles from McMurdo Station to Davis In less than eight hours of the decision on October 29, landed on the sea ice, to land on the sea ice two bulldozers and picked up Mr Stephen Bunning had cleared the necessary strip. who had second degree burns over 70 Earlier, in case the Hercules had per cent of his body. Tragically, to make an open field landing on the Mr Bunning died on the return flight Polar Plateau about 30km inland from in the early hours of October 30. Davis an alternative plan had been A 34-year-old building foreman prepared for the transfer of Mr with the Department of Housing and Bunning from the station. The Royal Construction this winter, Mr Bunning New Zealand Air Force was ready to was badly burned in a workshop fly a light Aerospatiale Squirrel accident on the afternoon of October helicopter (to be provided by Heli 28. He was treating a water tank with copters (N.Z.) Ltd) in one of its plastic sealant when it ignited. wheeled Hercules aircraft from When the station medical officer, Christchurch to McMurdo Station. Dr Peter Sullivan, advised the Antarc There the Squirrel could be loaded tic Division in Hobart that it was directly into the U.S. Hercules without imperative to get Mr Bunning to dismantling. It could then be used hospital for specialist treatment, the between Davis and the Polar Plateau. director, Mr Jim Bleasel, called Mr Bob Thomson, director of the New RESPONSE TO CALLS Zealand Antarctic Division in In response to Australian calls for Christchurch. McMurdo Station was all available international help the advised by a message relayed through Soviet Union offered to send an Mi-8 Scott Base and preliminary planning helicopter to carry the injured man began. to Molodezhnaya Station 729nm from To co-ordinate operations Mr Davis. Molodezhnaya has two doctors Thomson arranged a satellite communi during the winter and a well-equipped cations link between Christchurch, hospital. But the offer had to be Hobart, McMurdo Station, and Casey declined because of the time factor. and Davis Stations. Captain David When the Hercules took off from Srite, Commander U.S. Naval Support Williams Field at 3 p.m. (local time) Force, Antarctica, was able to make a for Davis it was flown by Commander Hercules available for the 2908nm Paul Derocher, who commands the flight between the stations but as it U.S. Navy's VXE-6 Squadron, and would have to land on the sea ice in carried a medical team of a Navy front of Davis the planners had to flight surgeon and a senior hospital determine first whether the ice could corpsman. Weather information had bear the weight of the aircraft and the been provided earlier by other stations, bulldozers which would have to clear including Casey and Davis, and they December, 1985 ANTARCTIC continued to monitor conditions taken to Burwood Hospital, which during the mission. specialises in the treatment of burns Shortly after 9 p.m. the Hercules cases, after being flown back from made an uneventful landing on the McMurdo Station in a United States sea ice which was about 1.35m thick. Air Force Starlifter. His body was The aircraft took off shortly before flown back the same day. 10.30 p.m. (local time). Australian appreciation of the Although Mr Bunning's condition efforts made to bring Mr Bunning was considered critical he was from Davis was expressed by the conscious before he left Davis and Prime Minister (Mr Bob Hawke) in aware he was being flown to Christ a letter to the United States Embassy church by way of McMurdo Station. in Canberra. He thanked all concerned He was given emergency treatment on behalf of the Australian people and by the medical team but died at the winter teams at Mawson, Davis, 12.27 a.m. on October 30. His death and Casey. Mr Hawke added that was the result of inhalation burns while Stephen Bunning's life had not within his lungs. The Hercules landed been saved the mission was a dramatic at Williams Field at 3.27 a.m. (local demonstration of the spirit that unites time). people working in Antarctica and the Arrangements had been made in close co-operation which exists under Christchurch for Mr Bunning to be the Antarctic Treaty system.

Chinare Return to King George Island

China, admitted as a consultative party to the Antarctic Treaty in October, will send its second research expedition to Antarctica in November. Last season the first expedition established a summer station, Chang Cheng (Great Wall) on King George Island in the South Shetlands. This season the Chinese National 12min S/58deg 57min W about 2.3km Antarctic Research Expedition from the Chilean and Soviet stations, (CHINARE) will send a team of 30 Teniente Rodolfo Marsh and Belling- scientists to King George Island to hausen. It has accommodation carry out projects in geology, buildings, a weather observatory, a geophysics, marine biology, and heliport, two oil depots, and a wharf. cartography. An unspecified number Fildes Peninsula is one of the most of foreign scientists and overseas extensive ice-free areas in the maritime Chinese have been invited to join the Antarctic. expedition. Two Argentine scientists, Two ships, the oceanographic one from the Argentine Navy, research vessel Xiang Yanghong No. 10 accompanied the first expedition. and the Chinese Navy's salvage ship Great Wall Station is on the east J121, which served as the logistic side of the Fildes Peninsula at 62deg support ship, took the first expedition ANTARCTIC December, 1985 of 591 scientists, construction workers, with the ecology of krill as part of and crew members to King George China's contribution to SIBEX, the Island. The ships sailed from Shanghai second stage of the Biological Investi on November 20, 1984, and returned gation of Marine Antarctic Systems on April 10 this year. and Stocks (BIOMASS). Samples of On December 29 three days after phytoplankton and zooplankton were the Xiang Yanghong anchored in obtained and on January 1 experi Maxwell Bay the Chinese National ments were conducted aboard ship Committee for Antarctic Research with live krill. decided to establish a summer station on King George Island. While con In a survey of Fildes Strait which struction workers were engaged on runs generally east to west between building the station, scientists on King George Island and Nelson Island the island and aboard the research the marine biologists discovered about vessel began a series of surveys 130 kinds of seaweed and more than covering biology, hydrology, geology, 400 kinds of lichen and bryophytes chemistry, geophysics, and meteoro in the waters west of King George logy. A topographical map of the Island the offshore area. On January area surrounding the station complex 18 a biologist dived to a depth of 50m was produced and biologists also for five minutes and emerged with studied penguin colonies on nearby a collection of geological specimens Nelson Island. and sedimentary deposits from the Much of the marine research from seabed which were taken back to the Xiang Yanghong was concerned China for detailed study. 10 die in air crash Eight United States tourists and the Chilean port of Tierra del Fuego, two Chileans were killed on December began tourist operations in the 31 when a Chilean charter airline's 1983-84 summer when it flew 30 Cessna Titan 404 crashed off the passengers on five trips to Teniente coast of King George Island, South Marsh. This season's trips were made Shetlands. The tourists were on their under charter to Sports Tour Chile, way from Punta Arenas to spend a United States travel agency based New Year's Eve at the Chilean Air in Key West, Florida. . . Force station, Teniente Rodolfo Marsh. Chilean Air Force pilots found the bodies of the passengers and crew in the wreckage of the Cessna 10km from the station. The pilot of the Aero Petrel twin-engined aircraft approached the airfield in low visibility, made one pass, and then circled the area. His aircraft apparently hit one of the islands off the Fildes Peninsula where Marsh Station is situated. Aero Petrel, a small charter airline, which operates from Punta Arenas, December, 1985 ANTARCTIC Italy plans Terra Nova Bay Base Italy, which acceded to the Antarctic Treaty in 1981, plans to spend upwards of US$130 million on scientific research in Antarctica over the next five years. Sites for a future permanent station in the Ross Dependency will be assessed by a small expedition which will make a 60-day reconnaissance cruise in the Ross Sea this summer, particularly in Terra Nova Bay on the west coast of North Vic'oria Land. The expedition left Lyttelton this month and will retu.n in February.

This season the Italian Govern also visited the former joint U.S.-N.Z. ment has provided US$5.3 million station at Cape Hallett in January for the expedition's research and last year as part of their preparation support. The Norwegian Arctic of an Antarctic research programme ice-strengthened research vessel Polar for the NCR. Queen (1050 tonnes) has been chartered from G.C. Rieber and Co. ARMY LEADER Ltd, of Bergen, and Helicopters Leader of the expedition is an (N.Z.) Ltd, of Nelson, has obtained Italian Army officer, Colonel 1 Sterpone. Dr Stocchino is the scientific and pilots to support the expedition co-ordinator for the CNR. during the summer. Colonel Sterpone belongs to the Corpo d'Alpini, the mountain troops N.Z. LINKS regiment. He is an experienced skier, has climbed extensively in the Italian New Zealand's association with and Swiss Alps, and is a member of Italian polar scientists began in the the Italian Alpine Club which has International Geophysical Year honoured him foir his ascents of (1957-58) when Lieutenant Franco certain peaks. Faggioni, of the Italian Navy, wintered Projects manager for the expedition at Scott Base. Italy has sent five in Italy is Mr Celio Vallone, who expeditions to Antarctica and the visited New Zealand in September sub-Antarctic, one privately spon to discuss arrangements with the sored, and three expeditions since Antarctic Division and other organisa 1968 have worked in the Ross tions. He is an engineer with ENEA, Dependency with New Zealand scien an agency of the Department for tific and logistic support. Protection of the Environment and In the 1982-83 season two repre Human Welfare concerned with the sentatives of the Italian National organisation of the Antarctic Research Council (CNR), Dr Carlo programme. Stocchino and Dr Marcello Manzoni, CNR, which is also responsible visited Scott Base, Vanda Station, for the development of nuclear energy and McMurdo Station, to conduct and alternative energy sources, has feasibility studies for an Italian organised a research programme Antarctic research programme. They covering projects in biology, geology, ANTARCTIC December, 1985 geophysics, vulcanology, oceanography institutions and Antarctic operations, meteorology, and topopgraphy. These and the director, Mr Bob Thomson, projects will be carried out by 14 is advising the expedition. He will scientists who will work from the join the Polar Queen in Terra Nova Polar Queen in Terra Nova Bay with Bay, probably during a science cruise helicopter support to field sites ashore. by the United States Coast Guard In addition to Dr Stocchino the icebreaker Polar Star when he flies scientific team includes: Professors south later in the season. Andrea Anav, Ivo di Menno Master of the Polar Queen, which (meteorologists), Guido di Prisco has a crew of 11 to 13, is Captain (biologist), Bruno Lombardo and Magnar Aklestad. He took the ship Marcello Manzoni (geologists). to the Ross Sea with a West German Six universities are represented by expedition in the 1982-83 season, Professors Luigi Carmignani (Pisa), and knows Terra Nova Bay well. Guido Gosso (Torino), Guiseppe SECOND VISIT Orombelli (Milan), geologists; Letterio Villari (Messina), vulcanologist, and On her way back to Lyttelton the Giorgio Caneva (Genoa), geophysicist. Polar Queen will call at Cape Hallett. ENEA and industry have Dr Massimo Mr Thomson has arranged for the Frezzotti (geologist), Rodolfo expedition to pick up and bring back Cappelletti (surveyor) and Fabio cargo from the former joint United Giovinazzo (geotechnician). States-New Zealand Hallett Station. A maintenance team of four men FIELD GUIDES from the Antarctic Division will spend a month at the station early A team of field guides with moun next year on a works programme to tain rescue experience has been minimise the effects of former human assigned to the expedition by the habitation at the site. Ministry of Defence. They are: Although the Polar Queen is Lieutenant-Colonel Mauro Spreafice primarily an Arctic research and (guide), Mario di Capua (doctor), offshore survey vessel she has operated Captain Enzo Giacomin (guide), and in Antarctic waters before. She Staff Sergeant Lorenzo Boi (guide). arrived in Lyttelton on December 6 The radio operators Francesco Morassi and sailed to the Ross Sea several (Navy) and Aldo Scherillo (Air Force) days later. In the 1981-82 season she are senior N.CO.'s. was chartered by the West German Mr Joern Fortun, of the Norwegian Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar Polar Institute's logistics division, who Research to carry additional con is the expedition's logistics manager, struction materials and supplies for heads a group of Norwegian field Georg von Neumayer Station in guides with Arctic experience. Two Atka Bay on the Ekstrom Ice Shelf of them, Captain Ola van der Eynden and the Filchner summer station on and Lieutenant Justein Helgestad, the Filchner Ice Shelf. She also are Norwegian Army officers serving supported research at both stations. in a private capacity. The others are After her voyage to the Weddell Jon Fadnes and Terje Olsen. Sea side of the continent the Polar Discussions have been held with Queen was chartered in the 1982-83 the New Zealand Antarctic Division season by the West German Federal since the Italian Government decided Institute of Geosciences and Natural on a general investigation of polar Resources (BGR) to take GANOVEX December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

III to North Victoria Land. The of whom has operated in North purpose of this expedition was to Victoria Land before. They are Mr continue and finish the work of Jim Wilson (chief pilot) and Mr Trevor GANOVEX II which had only started McGowan. Two company engineers when the Gotland II sank in December, will work, with the pilots. Peter 1980. Gibbs will go first; Neil Marwick On her first voyage south the Polar will relieve him later. Queen carried five Hughes 500 heli In the 1979-80 season GANOVEX copters chartered from a Canadian chartered two Hughes 500 helicopters firm. One was damaged at Wellington from Helicopters (N.Z.) Ltd. Mr and replaced by a New Zealand heli Wilson was one of the three New copter. This time the Squirrel heli Zealand pilots abo. -d the expedition's copters she will carry will be flown by chartered ice-strt igthened vessel experienced New Zealand pilots, one Schepelsturm. Swedish Polar Research with N.Z. Future co-operation between in polar scientific research in the Sweden and New Zealand on Antarctic and Arctic, and work scientific research in the Antarctic towards signing a treaty on the and Arctic will be discussed early subject. next year by Mr R.B. Thomson, Sweden is also interested in director of New Zealand's Antarctic trying to develop co-operation with Division, and Professor Anders Australia in Antarctic research, Karlqvist, director of Swedish polar according to the Australian Minister research. They will meet in for Science Mr Barry Jones. February when Professor Karlqviat Professor Karlqvist, accepted the returns from a visit to Australia's Minister's invitation to visit Antarctic bases. Mawson, Casey, Davis - from Preliminary discussions on co November throughout the summer. operation between Sweden and New Zealand were held in Reference: "Antarctic", December, Christchurch this year by Mr 1984. Pages 306-7. Thomson, and Dr Bo Johnson Theutenberg, legal adviser to the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs after their return from the Antarctic Treaty workshop on the Beardmore Glacier. These discussions were followed later in the year by a meeting between the Swedish Foreign Minister (Mr Lennart Bodstrom) and the New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr David Lange). They announced in a joint communique that the two countries have agreed to co-operate actively ANTARCTIC December, 1985 BAS British resupply bases and begin field work The 1985/86 season began with the departure on September 20 of the three Twin Otter aircraft from the U.K. where they had been serviced during the southern winter. As usual, they were flown south via North and South America and arrived at Rothera on October 7. All three were engaged the on September 17 and sailed south via following day in ferrying cargo to Montevideo, arriving in the South Fossil Bluff, the advanced base in Shetland Islands on October 23. Two George VI Sound, which was then men were put ashore at Livingston reopened. The base will again be Island for two weeks, to begin an manned throughout the summer as a investigation into the mineralization staging post for the aircraft and field of the Antarctic Peninsula region. parties. Further stores were flown The ship proceeded to Damoy, there later. Aerial sea ice observations Wiencke Island (off the west coast were undertaken on the initial flight of the Antarctic Peninsula) from to Rothera and subsequently, in where fourteen field workers were preparation for the ships' arrival. to be flown south via Rothera. Unfortunately, prolonged violent winds with rapid changes of direction TO FALKLANDS were experienced at Rothera in the second half of the month and resulted The ship then headed for the in aileron and rudder damage to two Falkland Islands, to off-load cargo of the aircraft. A Canadian Borekair destined for Bird Island, South Twin Otter, chartered by the U.S. Georgia, and take on the aircraft National Science Foundation, was due rudder. By November 2, the ship to fly to Siple station via Rothera at had rounded Trinity Peninsula and about that time and was able to take was one mile from James Ross Island. the necessary spares south, and the A twelve-man geological. field party B.A.S. aircraft were repaired and was landed the following day to test-flown on October 31. In the continue a comprehensive survey of meantime, the rudder of the third the island. The ship returned to aircraft was also damaged, but a Livingston Island to pick up the two replacement was made available men and take them to An vers Island, immediately by De Havilland and calling at Palmer station before flown via London to the Falkland relieving Faraday station on November Islands where it was picked up by 8-9. An attempt was then made to R.R.S. John Biscoe. Had the aircraft reach Rothera but the ship was held been out of action for any length of up by pressure ice west of Adelaide time before the field parties were Island. established, the summer programmes Meanwhile, the James Ross Island would have been seriously disrupted. party had run into difficulties. While The John Biscoe had left Grimsby relaying the stores across a bay, two December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

motor toboggans and sledges and proceed south via Montevideo and some fuel were lost through the sea Stanley. The ship will call at South ice, where it had been rotted by a Georgia, Bird Island and Signy (South meltwater stream. Fortunately, the Orkney Islands) before relieving Halley men involved were unhurt, and the Station, and will later assist in rest of the men and stores were still geological landings in the Antarctic at the first camp site. The general Peninsula area. condition of the Prince Gustav One innovation this season has Channel ice was found to be unusually been the chartering of the (private) poor for the time of year and French yacht Damien for six weeks, deteriorating rapidly, so it cannot to enable B.A.S. biologists to carry be used for a geophysics traverse of out an elephant r?al census around the Channel, as planned, nor to South Georgia. Th : yacht can reach facilitate travel around the island. isolated beaches in the numerous small Lack of snow on the island is also coves, even in rough conditions. restricting travel and it is doubtful It is to be chartered for a further whether much field work will be six weeks for a penguin census around possible. the exposed and precipitous Willis R.R.S. Bransfield sailed from Islands, beyond Bird Island off the Grimsby on October 30 and will northwestern tip of South Georgia.

R.R.S. John Biscoe trapped On 13 November, while attempting which then proceeded to Palmer to reach Rothera, the John Biscoe Station. became trapped in a 15 mile wide In a subsequent rendezvous with belt of pressure ice off Adelaide the West German ship Polarstern Island, about 4 miles in from the ice the John Biscoe's captain, Chris edge. The following day the ship Elliott and 19 of his officers and crew managed to move one mile, but and four expedition personnel were strong northerly winds were increasing transferred from the Polar Duke. the pressure and forcing her towards The Polarstern broke through the icebergs. pack ice reaching the John Biscoe on 20 November. BAS personnel RS Polar Duke, on charter to the were transferred to her by crane. US Antarctic Research Program and An initial inspection indicated about 20 hours steaming away, went that there was no damage and the ship to the John Biscoe's assistance, was able to move out of the ice under arriving on the 16th November. By her own steam, escorted by the the following night the John Biscoe Polarstern. She then went north to was almost free when a severe north Palmer Station and the 40 passengers easterly gale compacted the ice again, and crew accommodated by the forcing the ship to drift dangerously Americans were reembarked and the near icebergs grounded on a shoal ship proceeded to Damoy Station on west of the Amiot Islands. The ship Wienecke Island. At the end of the was abandoned and the 31 officers month she was thoroughly inspected and crew and 33 expedition members by BAS divers at Signy. They found were transferred to the Polar Duke no damage. ANTARCTIC December, 1985

This will be combined with an aerial and day of the original surveys, to survey of the penguin colonies by ensure that fluctuations over the helicopters from H.M.S. Endurance. ten-year period are not masked by At the stations, routine work has seasonal cycles. continued and preparations have been Measurements in Greenland made for the coming summer. At indicate that the ice is now thinning Rothera in September, 1,200 drums of at the coastline and thickening in the fuel were taken up to the airstrip, central area, and it will be interesting and the two mobile huts there were to compare these with any changes jacked up above the accumulated in the Antarctic Peninsula area. The snow, ready for the arrival of the BAS most obvious change in the latter, in aircraft in early November. A the pa*st few decades, has been the Canadian Twin Otter, piloted by reduction in the extent of the ice ex-B.A.S, pilot Giles Kershaw, also shelves. arrived. It was carrying a party of Canadian and American climbers heading for the Ellsworth Mountains. Halley's comet Two groups of Korean climbers are to be picked up later by the aircraft — observations from Punta Arenas and Marsh station. Halley station, which was named Several short journeys were made after Edmund Halley, 1656-1742, by B.A.S. men from Signy, Faraday, the second Astronomer Royal and Rothera and Halley stations, chiefly a distinguished Secretary of the for recreation, in September and Royal Society, will be participating October. As usual, one of the chief in the International Halley (comet) attractions at Halley has been the Watch from mid-March to May nearby emperor penguin colony. 1986. The station is particularly OTHER PROGRAMMES important as it is one of the few The scientific field programmes to southern hemisphere stations at be undertaken this summer were about long. 30deg W. (The comet outlined in the September issue of will, by then, be in the southern 'Antarctic', but one item not sky). It will undertake photo mentioned was the long-term optical graphy and photometric studies, monitoring development of the monitoring of the ice sheet. The Antarctic Peninsula is an area sensitive comet's tail. to climatic change and is likely to be A series of four commemorative one of the first places to give an Halley's comet stamps will be indication of trends which may issued in the British Antarctic Territory in early 1986. They affect the whole continent. will depict Edmund Halley (from The remeasurement of lines levelled a portrait at the Royal Society), optically over the ice between bench marks on rock provides evidence of Halley station with a background surface-level fluctuations. This year of stars, Peter Apian's observations a surveyor will visit Palmer Land and of Halley's comet in 1531 and the Alexander Island to study five lines set out in 1975 and 1976, only one of which has been subsequently December, 1985 ANTARCTIC United States begin detailed study of Beardmore Glacier A detailed study of the Beardmore Glacier area in the Transantarctic Mountains less than 400 nautical miles from the South Pole will be the major scientific project in the United States Antarctic Research Programme (USARP) for the 1985-86 season which began officially on October 1. More than 60 scientists, supported by aircraft and helicopters, will study glacial deposits to learn nore about the growth and decay of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and search for more vertebrate fossils which may provide clues to the relationship and distribution of the world's land animals about 240 million years

Scientific projects and logistic States Coast Guard's icebreakers Polar support for the research programme Star and Glacier. The NSF chartered as well as the maintenance of four new research vessel Polar Duke will permanent coastal and inland stations, support biological and oceanographic all financed and co-ordinated by the research in the Antarctic Peninsula National Science Foundation, are ex area for the second summer, and the pected to cost USS 110.1 million Military Sealift Command's new cargo plus this season. U.S. scientists will ship Green Wave, which replaced the work at McMurdo Station, Amundsen- Southern Cross last summer, will Scott South Pole Station, and Palmer again transport cargo between Station on Anvers Island, Antarctic Lyttelton and McMurdo Station. Peninsula They will also conduct On her first cruise the veteran upper atmosphere research at Siple Glacier will support a marine geologi Station in Ellsworth Land, which was cal project in the South Orkney closed last winter, and will be opened Island-Bellingshausen Sea area. This again in November. summer scientists from Rice Univer This season 320 scientists will be sity, Houston, Texas, will investigate engaged in 87 research projects on the sedimentary glacial record pre the Antarctic Continent, in the served in marine sections of the Southern Ocean, in the Antarctic continental margin between the South Peninsula area, at the South Pole, Orkney Plateau and Marguerite Bay. in Victoria Land, around McMurdo They will take piston cores and Sound, on Ross Island, and in East conduct a single-channel siesmic and West Antarctica. They will con survev. duct joint research with scientists SCIENCE CRUISES from the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, the Soviet Union, Late in February the Glacier Poland, Canada, and Japan. will cruise in the Weddell Sea to In their activities the scientists support research along the ice edge. will be supported by Hercules aircraft This work will be done from the and helicopters flown by the United research ship G.W. Melville operated States Navy's VXE-6 Squadron, U.S. by the Scripps Institution of Oceano Air Force Starlifters, and the United graphy for AMERIEZ - Antarctic ANTARCTIC December, 1985

Marine Ecosystem Research in the may have started more than 30 million Ice Edge System. years ago. Only the icebreaker Polar Star Understanding of the time and will operate in the Ross Sea this magnitude of the fluctuations is summer. After delivering passengers, rudimentary. One of the objectives fuel, and cargo to Palmer Station she of studying glacial deposits is to will break the ice channel to McMurdo try to establish more accurately the Station for the new tanker Paul Buck, growth and decay of the East Antarctic which has replaced the Maumee, and Ice Sheet and the times at which it the Green Wave. In January and may have covered the Transantarctic February she will support four Mountains. separate science cruises in the Ross Between mid-November and late Sea. January about 60 scientists, mostly As in past seasons Starlifters of geologists, will work in the Beardmore the U.S. Military Airlift Command Glacier area. They are from 12 and Royal New Zealand Air Force United States universities and colleges, Hercules aircraft will make more than the U.S. Geological Survey, and New 35 flights south with scientists, Zealand's Victoria University of support staff, and supplies for the Wellington. United States and New Zealand In addition to Ohio State Univer research programmes. Flights by sity the institutions are: Arizona the wheeled aircraft from Christchurch State University, Augustana College in to the sea ice runway in McMurdo Illinois, University of California at Sound began early in October and Los Angeles (UCLA), Florida State will cease about mid-December. University, University of Kansas, MAJOR PROJECT University of Maine at Orono, State University of New York at Albany, This summer the major scientific University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt project of the programme will con University, Wayne State University centrate on the Beardmore Glacier and the University of Wisconsin at area in the Transantarctic Mountains. Madison. The heavily-crevassed Beardmore, about 160m long and between 24m ICE FIELD and 48m wide, is one of the glaciers Last season the main camp for the draining the vast East Antarctic Ice Beardmore project was established on Sheet into the Ross Ice Shelf. Because the flat snow and ice field about 40m it lies near the centre of the continent across in the Queen Alexandra Range. and contains extensive ice-free terrain It was used first in January this year with well-preserved galcial deposits for the international Antarctic Treaty the Beardmore Glacier is an important workshop. The area at 83deg 59min S/ testing ground for opposing hypotheses 164deg 06min E provides a better of Antarctic ice sheet behaviour during landing site for ski-equipped Hercules global ice ages. aircraft and United States Navy heli Chief scientist for the Beardmore copters which will transport the project is Scottish-born Dr David H. scientists and more than 30 support Elliot, professor of geology at Ohio staff from McMurdo Station, and to State University, and director of its field camps. Institute of Polar Studies. He says One team of geologists will try to that the history of the growth and determine the sources of sediments fluctuation of the Antarctic ice sheets deposited by glaciers that may have December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

flowed over the peaks of the Trans a field party will search the Trans antarctic Mountains more than three antarctic region for meteorites. They million years ago. The data they get are important to scientists studying should help explain why these glacial the origin and evolution of planets deposits, now more than 2743m above and their moons because most are sea level, contain marine microfossils. analogous to rocks from deep within Dr Elliot was one of a four-man the earth. team from Ohio State University that Antarctic meteorites are of special discovered the first land vertebrate value because the deep-freeze con fossil found in Antarctica. The fossil ditions on the continent retain them piece of the lower jawbone of an in a pristine condition, with almost amphibian was found in 1967 in the no contamination by organic materials central Transantarctic Mountains, since their journey from space. They about 282nm from the South Pole. are useful also in investigating The fossil was determined to be that possible changes in the rate of flow of a labyrinthodont, an extinct of meteoroids to earth and measuring amphibian that ranged in size from the cosmic ray flow of past eras. alligators to salamanders. They were the dominant amphibians of the late CLIMATE CHANGES Paleozoic and early Mesozoic era, An Ohio State University team will 350 to 200 million years ago. try to determine climatic and glacial Another group in the Beardmore conditions that existed in Antarctica Glacier project will search for more over the last 2,000 years and seek to vertebrate fossils near the glacier to establish a pattern of climate variations gain an understanding of the evolu on that continent. The team includes tionary history of many vertebrates Drs Lonnie G. Thompson, Ellen that existed worldwide from the Mosley-Thompson and Thomas R. Permian to the Triassic periods, Sweet. between 280 to 210 million years Recent analyses of ice cores about ago. 457m deep, which record climate FOSSIL SEARCH for as far back as 10,000 years, have shown that large-scale climate fluc In a search for fossils of a different tuations, such as glacial and inter- nature, paleobotanists will scour the glacial periods, occur at approximately fossilised peat deposits in the Queen the same time throughout the world. Alexandra Range near the Beardmore To obtain data, drillers will retrieve Glacier for plants which have been one ice core about 457m long from permeated with silica. The structure a site near Siple Station near the base of these plants has been exquisitely of the Antarctic Peninsula -and four preserved. 106m ice cores in East Antarctica. Detailed studies can be made of Such shallow-depth ice cores give a the anatomy of these fossil plants. record of climate variations since Most of the fossil plants found in the beginning of the Holocene, about other areas are preserved as com 10,000 years ago, and are essential pressions in which their internal for interpreting longer records. structure has been destroyed. The Antarctic data will be combined with anatomically preserved plants in that obtained from ice cores retrieved Antarctica date back some 250 million in South America, Greenland, Alaska years. and China. This combination, In another Beardmore area project, scientists believe, will enable them ANTARCTIC December, 1985 to get a more complete picture of most of the surrounding seas at some worldwide climate variations over the time during the annual freezing and last 2,000 years. melting seasons. At its maximum Present physical and dynamic extent in early spring, the ice pack aspects of the West Antarctic ice covers seven to eight million square sheet, whose behaviour is important miles, an area much larger than the for glaciology and for an under 5,500,000 square miles that comprise standing of world climate, will be Antarctica. investigated by a team from the Many casual observations and some University of Wisconsin-Madison, measurements suggest that the ice headed by Dr Charles R. Bentley. edge zone has a higher concentration Scientists will assess the behaviour of plants and animals and higher bio of the ice sheet over the last few logical activity than either the open thousand years and conduct a geo sea or the ice pack. This has led physical survey around the Siple scientists to hypothesise that the Coast of Marie Byrd Land. Radar ice edge is an important feeding soundings will be conducted on the area for marine birds and mammals. ice sheet and its boundary with Preliminary data gathered during a bed rock. In addition, magnetic cruise in the northern part of the surveys will be conducted from a Weddell Sea in November and chartered Twin Otter aircraft. These December, 1983, showed that there will be done over two ice streams and were massive blooms of algae and the areas draining into them. large numbers of invertebrate grazing Gravitational and magnetic forces of animals. the region's geology under the ice This season the scientists will try will also be surveyed. to increase understanding of the Antarctic marine ecosystem and pro MARINE STUDIES vide infonnation for rational manage This season about 12 scientists ment of Antarctic resources. They will continue the first major study of will gather further data not only on the ecologically important ice edge the biology of the ice edge but also zone - where the Antarctic ice pack on the physical and chemical con meets the open seas.' The project ditions which maintain the heightened headed by Dr Cornelius Sullivan, of biological activity at the ice edge. the University of Southern California, is titled Antarctic Marine Eco SULPHUR GASES system Research at Ice Edge Zone Scientists from the Universities of (AMERIEZ). Rhode Island and Virginia will begin, AMERIEZ scientists will conduct in mid-December to investigate the research in biology, physical and hypothesis that sulphur gases pro chemical oceanography, and acoustics duced by tiny marine plants may be at the edge of the ice shelf in the a major source of sulphate aerosols Weddell Sea from late February over Antarctica. Dr Robert Duce to the end of March. They will work (Rhode Island) and Drs Alexander from the Scripps Institution of A.P. Pszenny and James N. Galloway Oceanography Research vessel Melville, (Virginia) will work in the Scotia and the United States Coast Guard and Weddell Seas; in Drake Passage, icebreaker Glacier. between the southern tip of South A major feature of the Antarctic America and the Antarctic Peninsula; region, the ice edge zone includes and in Bransfield Strait, between December, 1985 ANTARCTIC the Antarctic Peninsula and the South in the Weddell Sea with those in the Shetland Islands. Ross Sea. If they can demonstrate Support for the biological and strong enough relationships between oceanographic investigations will be ocean conditions and diatom distri provided by the ice-strengthened bution patterns, an important new research vessel Polar Duke. It re tool will have been gained for scien placed the research vessel Hero last tists studying modern and ancient season, and has been leased by the ocean and environmental conditions. National Science Foundation for BOTTOM DWELLERS Marine and Coastal Studies in the Antarctic Peninsula area. In the McMurdo Sound area scien Sulphur in the form of sulphate tists from the Scripps Institution of constitutes between 80 and 90 percent Oceanography headed by Dr Ted E. of the atmospheric aerosols over De Laca will use special cold-water Antarctica. Studies have shown that diving equipment to study under the weathering of the earth's crust, sea ice bottom-dwelling one-celled animals salts, oxidation of atmospheric con called rhizopods. Although such stituents, stratospheric aerosols and animals, known generically as benthic volcanism account for only two- foraminifera, are abundant in many thirds of this sulphur. Although it marine communities, their place in has not been confirmed, available the food chain, significance in energy data strongly suggest that much of transfer and their effect on other the sulphur may come from marine organisms remain unknown. biological sources, such as tiny plants This season the scientists will work called phytoplankton. mostly at New Harbour under 9m of ice in waters up to 30m deep. AND THE AEROSOL New Harbour is across McMurdo During the summer the scientists Sound from Ross Island. The will determine the concentration of McMurdo region has varied types of gaseous sulphur dioxide and other marine habitats with distinctive sulphates in the boundary between populations of rhipozods ranging from the sea and the atmosphere. They shallow water to deep ocean species. also will estimate how much of this The studies will focus on the food hypothesised marine source of sulphur consumption of rhizopod populations, contributes to the sulphur-dominated their density and biomass and their aerosol. food value for other animals. Be Previous studies in the Ross and cause these studies are year-round, Weddell Seas suggest that information the scientists will obtain information about physical changes in the ocean not only on the roles of rhizopods can be inferred from corresponding in antarctic ocean bottom communi changes in assemblages or groups ties, but also on environmental con of diatoms that have been placed ditions and their effects on animal sequentially into the sediment. populations. Diatoms are one-celled algae that are a source of food for a wide variety UPPER ATMOSPHERE of marine life. Two scientists from the University A major two-year programe in of Maine, Drs Thomas B. and Davida atmospheric science will be started E. Kellogg, will compare diatom dis this season when Siple Station in tribution patterns they have observed Ellsworth Land is reopened in ANTARCTIC December, 1985

November. The Katabatic winds consist of Headed by Dr Robert A. Helliwell chilled, dense air spilling off the high of Stanford University, scientists will ice cap under the influence of gravity investigate what happens when very- rather than temperature or rotation. low-frequency (VLF) electromagnetic These winds are strong and steady, waves interact with charged particles with velocities proportional to the in the magnetosphere. The objective slopes. They are found wherever is to improve understanding of the there are large ice masses. magnestosphere, a region controlled Three U.S. automatic weather by the earth's magnetic field. The stations have been set up between magnetosphere is adjacent to the Dumont d'Urville, a French station ionosphere which is important in on the Adelie Land coast, and a site radio communications. known as Dome C, about 1094km A 41.8km-long horizontal antenna inland. Data from these stations at Siple on an 804m-high ice sheet are providing a better understanding will be reconfigured and the VLF of the seasonal variation of the transmitter there will be modified to katabatic winds and how they are allow scientists to expand their studies influenced by pressure systems. of wave excitation in the magneto sphere and wave-induced charged WITH THE FRENCH particle precipitation into the Working with the French, who ionosphere. have established weather stations in Siple, originally opened in 1969 and around Dumont d'Urville, the is on a flat, featureless plain near the U.S. team will use kites and balloons base of the Antarctic Peninsula. to make measurements in the lower Scientists selected this site because atmosphere and estimate the net it is the best location in the Southern heat flow at three sites. The U.S. Hemisphere for controlled VLF wave team will occupy one station about studies of the upper atmosphere. The 96.5km from the coast while French site is at one end of a geomagnetic observers conduct similar experiments line of force which passes through a at two other sites, one 19km from the region in space called the plasmapause coast and the other 193km inland. and returns to earth in Roberval, Although scientists have studied the Quebec. Scientists at Siple and geological history of the dry valleys Roberval record what happens to of Southern Victoria Land there VLF radio signals generated at Siple have been few studies of the nature as they travel through the plasmapause and rate of physical and chemical enroute to Roberval. processes in the region. Arizona State University geologists last summer KATABATIC WINDS established test sites to examine wind In a cooperative project with erosion, desert-pavement formation, French scientists, American scientists chemical and physical modification of will try to learn more about the rock materials and the relationship katabatic winds that strongly influence of these processes to landform the climate of Antarctica and the development. extent of the ice pack surrounding Dr Michael C. Malin will head a the continent. The U.S. effort will research team to obtain information be headed by Dr GerdWendler and for various time scales, beginning with Dr Joan P. Gosink, both of the two months and continuing up to 40 University of Alaska. years. The team will visit 10 test sites to collect samples and document the activity of the Ross Island region. test materials. The samples will be Discovered in 1972 the lake is the analysed using a number of scientific world's only persistant lava lake techniques including x-ray diffraction, accessible for study. It gradually optical inspection, mineralogical increased in size during the next analysis and scanning electron micro four years, and has remained fairly scopy. The information should constant in size since 1976. help in understanding how these A U.S.-Japan-New Zealand project valleys are changing and how to has used a seismological network predict the evolution of the region. since 1980 to acquire data. This On Ross Island geologists from the summer the network's 10 permanent University of Alaska led by Dr Juergen seismic stations will be serviced. Kiele will use seismic data to try to The network helps to locate precisely define the geometry and eruptive micro-earthquakes in order to define behaviour of the magma (molten active areas of Ross Island volcanos. rock) body that feeds the lava lake in It also enables scientists to monitor the active crater of Mt. Erebus. The long-term seismic energy release and geologists will also study the general fluctuations. Veteran tanker Maumee ends service Early next year a new tanker will arrive at Lyttelton on February 1, begin the transport of aviation and sailing the next day. diesel fuel for United States stations, Launched early in 1956 the aircraft, and ships in Antarctica. Maumee had a cargo capacity of After 29 years' service and 15 voyages 7,092,238 gallons. In 1969 she and south since the 1969-70 season the the Yukon were given ice-strengthened USNS Maumee has been scrapped. bows to fit them for Antarctic supply Her replacement is the Paul Buck, work. The Maumee began her regular which has been in service since voyages to McMurdo Station in the February this year. 1969-70 season and maintained the One of five tankers being laid down service without a break until the to replace the Maumee class (Maumee, 1981-82 season when the Yukon Shoshone, Yukon), the 30,000-tonne replaced her for one voyage. Paul Buck is 187m long and 27m wide, Although she was escorted in and and carries a crew of 23. She is out of McMurdo Station to the edge operated by the Trinidad Corporation of the summer pack ice the Maumee and has a cargo capacity of 7,852,500 did not leave the Ross Sea without gallons of fuel. By the end of this scars. In 1976 when she was 390nm year two more of the five tankers north of McMurdo Sound she met (Potomac and American Explorer) heavy pack ice on January 22. A are expected to be in service. The 2.4m gash was cut in her bow at the fourth and fifth will be completed waterline and increased to 6m when next year. she attempted to continue. On her first voyage south the After the Coast Guard icebreaker Paul Buck, which also carries fuel Burton Island reached the Maumee for Scott Base, is expected to dis on January 23 she was able to pro charge her cargo at McMurdo Station ceed slowly towards McMurdo Sound. between January 14 and 20. She will Ice conditions were still difficult at depart on January 25 and should Cape Bird and Beaufort Island but ANTARCTIC December, 1985 the tanker berthed finally in Winter knots but averaged only eight knots, Quarters Bay on January 25. and for long periods was stopped When the Maumee left on January altogether in extremely heavy pack 29 after discharging 4.25 million ice. Temporary repairs were made gallons of fuel the Burton Island had when the ship reached Lyttelton on to escort her through the ice-choked February 10. Shipwrights repaired channel in McMurdo Sound to open holes in her deep tanks and No. 1 water. Difficult ice was encountered cargo tank. After bunkering she again near Cape Bird. sailed with the gaping hole in her To ease pressure on her damaged bow and continued to Panama at bow the Maumee proceeded to slightly more than 10 knots instead Lyttelton at the reduced speed of 10.4 of her usual 17 knots plus.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 429 941 kg of food for the 17 men and two women at the Pole. The 19 the drop zone at 305m but was bundles dropped through the side forced to return to New Zealand doors of the Starlifter also contained with its cargo. 3.52 tonnes of spare parts and other Mail and fresh food, particularly equipment. fruit, were high on the priority list With a winter population of 82 men for the men and women who had and three women McMurdo Station been waiting more than four months received 155 kg of mail and 15.4 for the air drop. Water melons, tonnes of fresh food and supplies on avocadoes, and lettuces were on the the first drop which was made at list for 17 men and two women at 11.45 a.m. when the temperature the South Pole. Appropriately, 11 was minus 37deg Celsius. Scott Base New Zealanders enjoyed their kiwi- received 46.2 kg of mail and 602 kg fruit but some plums and fresh of general cargo. After a break on June 24 the yoghurt were squashed when the cargo bundles were dropped to the operation was completed the next ice from 305m. The plums were day when the Starlifter dropped 80 not wasted; they were turned into bundles of mail, fresh food, and red wine. general cargo at McMurdo Station. There were some unusual items in Twelve of die bundles contained the Scott Base consignment - a 190.5 kg of mail and 2.25 tonnes of miniature lawn mower, real dried cargo for Scott Base. McMurdo grass, cold fish and chips, a cake Station received 784 kg of fresh containing a saw and file, pickled food, 1.55 tonnes of mail, and 24.11 onions, a swede turnip, and a can of tonnes of cargo. haggis. These tangible reminders Altogether the two air drops of home came from families and provided 115 men and women on friends in response to radio telephone Ross Island and at the South Pole with requests during the winter, and 2.49 tonnes of fresh food and 2.45 occupied little space in the bundles. tonnes of mail as well as supplies and On the first flight the Starlifter equipment needed to maintain the dropped 20.5 tonnes of mail, fresh bases until the last winter flights in food, and general cargo in 65 con the third week of August. Support tainers to McMurdo and Pole Stations. for the operation was given by men This included 509.8 kg of mail and and women from the United States December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Navy, Army, and Air Force, the Zealand Air Force, and the Antarctic New Zealand Army, Royal New Division, DSIR. S u b - A n t a r c t i c ; 1 Mercy mission to Marion Island South African Air Force maintained a permanent meteoro Hercules aircraft and the South logical station on the island for African Navy's hydrographic survey many years. ship Protea took part in a mercy A SAAF Hercules dropped mission last winter to pick up the medical supplies to the station on leader of the weather team on July 11 after another Hercules sub-Antarctic Marion Island who was forced to turn back with was seriously UI with meningitis. engine trouble when only an hour Since then, the Protea which away from the island. Then the steamed at high speed from Cape Protea made a mercy dash to the Town to pick up Mr Graham island, and Mr Clarke, who was Clarke, has been presented with the team leader and medical the South African Sword of Peace orderly, was taken off by the ship's awarded annually for services of Wasp helicopter. the highest humanitarian order. It took three attempts to trans fer Mr Clarke in sub-zero weather. In June last year while the South He was brought back safely on African research and relief ship July 17 to the Simonstown naval Agulhas was out of commission base near Cape Town. This was a call for medical aid for Mr Clarke the fourth mercy mission in five came from Marion Island (46deg years to rescue sick or injured 54min S/37deg 45min E) which is men at remote South African 1241 nautical miles south-east of weather stations in Antarctica and Cape Town. South Africa has the sub-Antarctic. University expedition to Snares Crested penguin colonies on the Department will study the New sub-Antarctic Snares Islands about Zealand snipe as well as the crested 209km south-west of Bluff appear to penguin. It will also continue be increasing rapidly. Studies by surveillance of the main island to University of Canterbury scientists check that no rats or mice- reach it have shown a massive increase in the from fishing boats. number of chicks hatched each Mr Johns will return from the season - 18,800 last season, 10,000 islands in January and his place will in 1982-83, and 5,880 in 1968-69. be taken by Professor George Knox, This summer a party of five led who plans to complete marine studies by Mr Peter Johns, a senior lecturer he began in 1961 and 1967 on the in zoology, will travel to the Snares Snares and on Auckland, Campbell 100km from Stewart Island by fishing and Antipodes Islands. The party boat at the end of November. The will return in late February. expedition, financed by a grant of Mr Colin Miskelly, who will be on S9,380 from the Lands and Survey his fourth visit to the Snares, is com- ANTARCTIC December 1985 pleting a Ph.D. on the biology and breeding pairs establish nest . sites breeding behaviour of the New in the colonies and the survival rate Zealand Snipe, which is confined to of juvenile penguins — of 130 banded only a few subantarctic islands. He in 1982-83, only two survivors are will be comparing his findings with known. Lillias Brown will also investi studies of snipe found in other gate the effect of the breeding colonies countries. on the vegetation and its recovery Two Canterbury students, Lillias when colonies move. Brown and Richard de Hamel, will Mr Johns, who will be on his fifth be joined by an Otago student, Peter visit to the Snares, will also undertake Tennyson, to assist in the study of maintenance work on the university penguin colonies on the island. huts, the first of which were They will be investigating how new established in 1961. Minke whale assessment cruise Twelve scientists from Argentina, of the survey methods. This will Japan, the Soviet Union, Great include a study coordinated with the Britain and the United States are US icebreaker Polar Star to determine participating in the 1985/86 minke if there are any behavioural responses whale assessment cruise. by minke whales to the research Conducted within the auspices of vessels which could affect the survey the International Whaling Commission results. There will be no marking of the cruise is part of the work of the minke whales as has been the practice International Decade of Cetacean in some of the previous cruises. Research being carried out south of Cruise leader for this years pro eastern Australia and New Zealand gramme is Mr Gerald Joyce of Seattle and into the Ross Sea. Washington, USA who will coordinate all research activities. The four vessels, the Russian Other members of the research Vyderzhannyi; Japanese Kayo Maru team are F. Kasamatsu, K. Kawaura, No. 27, Shonan Maru and Shonan S. Nishiwaki and Shigemune from Maru No. 2 left Wellington on Japan; R. Rowlett, B. Troutman, December 16 and are due to return L. Tsunoda and K. Balcolm from the in late February. Three previous USA; J. Mermoz from Argentina; cruises have used Wellington as a home A. Ward from Great Britain. The port. Soviet researcher's name was not This is the eighth annual study and available at time of publication. the second conducted in the Antarctic A New Zealand observer Paul Ensor area V (130deg East to 170deg West). of Christchurch was not able to make It aims to provide improved popula the voyage. He was on board the tion estimates of minke and other Nella Dan under charter to the whales in Antarctic waters. The Australian Antarctic programme and minke is of prime interest as it is trapped in ice off Cape Ann, north of still being taken in Antarctic whaling Amundsen Bay in the region of operations. Enderby Land. The study will consist of a This section of the cruise has been systematic sightings survey coupled co-ordinated by Mr Martin Cawthom with experiments to quantify some from the New Zealand's Ministry of December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Agriculture and Fisheries Research international co-ordinators. Division in Wellington. Dr Ray Results of the cruise will be pre Campbell, Secretary of the Interna sented at the May 1986 meeting in tional Whaling Commission Cambridge England of the Scientific committee of U.K. and Dr Seiji Ohsumi of Japan the international Whaling Com- Fisheries Agency, Shimizu are the Greenpeace Plans for Ross Island Greenpeace, the international conservation organisation, has sent an expedition to Antarctica in December aboard an 887-tonne con verted ocean-going tug named Greenpeace. It plans to establish a permanent base in the Ross Island area of the Ross Dependency and maintain it for two years. Four men, a scientist, a doctor, a mechanic, and a radio operator, will occupy the base next year, and will be replaed by a second team in 1987. Present plans are for the expedition establish the base. Provided all goes of 35, including winter and summer well the Greenpeace should reach parties, officers and crew, and super- McMurdo Sound in the second week numaries, to sail from Sydney on of January. Selection of a base site December 15 for Hobart, take on and its construction are expected to more fuel, and sail direct to the south- take until the first week of February, west area of the Ross Sea. Earlier The summer team plans to return to plans for a visit to the French Dumont New Zealand early in March, d'urville Station on the coast of Adelie No details of where the ship would Land, and a prolonged voyage to the go or where the base would be sited Antarctic Peninsula appear to have were given in the early stages of the been shelved because the ship's higher campaign. Planning was interrupted fuel consumption has meant that when the Greenpeace then named its range is less than expected. Be- Gondwana, had to be diverted to cause of the heavy load carried on the Mururoa to support smaller ships in present voyage it is not possible to the Greenpeace International protest take on enough fuel for a visit to against French nuclear testing. The Dumont d'Urville and still have ship replaced the Rainbow Warrior adequate reserves. which was sunk by the French in If conditions are too severe and the Auckland Harbour on July 10. ice in the Ross Sea is too thick for the Some recent Greenpeace statements Greenpeace, Peter Wilkinson, director have indicated that the base would of the Antarctic campaign, says be in the south-west Ross Sea area. Greenpeace International will not Now Greenpeace says the base will Greenpeace abandoned its attempt to land a winter team on Ross Island on the evening of January 21. It was then 2.6 nm from Cape Bird. The ship retreated and by the next day was 21.5 nm to the north. Helicopters from Greenpeace had been used for ice reconnaisance. The expedition planned to remain in the area for a further two weeks before returning to Auckland where equipment will be stored for use in a further expedition next summer. ANTARCTIC December, 1985 be on Ross Island near the United closed in an outer shell 22m x 7m x 5m States McMurdo Station or New to provide better insulation, parti Zealand's Scott Base. It has five cularly from wind noise. The base sites in mind but the final choice buildings were made by a Hamburg will not be made until helicopter firm, Christiani and Nielsen, which reconnaissance report and an environ provides support services for the mental impace report by the winter West German programme, and was team have been studied. Construe concerned in the construction of the tion is expected to take about three permanent station, Georg von weeks. Neumayer on the Weddell Sea Coast. WINTER TEAM Two scientific projects will be carried out by the winter team during Two Englishmen, a West German, its stay in Antarctica. Ralph John and an Australian will occupy the will initiate studies on the coastal base next winter. The leader and fish fauna of the western Ross Sea. mechanic is a 28 year-old Falkland The aim is to provide baseline data Islander, Gerard Johnson, who spent throughout a whole year's cycle of the seven summers with the British coastal fish fauna of the waters close Antarctic Survey aboard the Royal to the Greenpeace base. Information Research Ship Bransfield, wintered about the feeding habits and diets of at Halley in 1983, and took part fish fauna of the Ross Sea for a whole in the building of the new station. year is scarce. A 28-year-old graduate of the Dr Mayers, who is a pathologist, Philipps University of Marburg, West will make a study of heat loss from Germany, Ralph John, is the expedi the head. This will follow work done tion's main scientist. He has studied by Dr C.J.H. Johnson, of Aberdeen corals on a previous expedition to the University, on hand microclimate at Red Sea. Dr Christopher Mayers, an Antarctic base. Infra-red thermo more recently senior partner in a graphy has shown the head to be an general practice in Devon, will carry important source of heat loss from the out a scientific project in addition to body in Antarctica. Dr Mayers will his medical duties. He is 53, has examine the head's heat loss, both worked in the Canadian sub-Arctic, bare and covered, using wind speed and was a crew member in the and other meteorological observations, 1981-82 round the world yacht and measurements close to the head race. and temperature changes in and Australia is represented in the around it. winter team by 21-year-old Ian For work around the base and in Balmer. He is a qualified radio tech the field the expedition will leave nician who trained at the Australian behind a Muskeg tractor with two Maritime College and was a trainee cargo sledges and a rubber-tyred broadcasting engineer with the Austra trailer, a new Bombardier Alpine lian Broadcasting Corporation before skideo (motor toboggan), and a joining Greenpeace. Nansen sledge for field travel. The Gerard Johnson and his team will large cargo sledges and the trailer live and work during the winter in a were made to haul large components prefabricated insulated plywood to the base site from the ship. A building 13.75m x 6.25m. A second landing craft with two outboard building 5m x 2.5m will house the motors and a cargo capacity of five generating plant. Both will be en tonnes has been acquired in case December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

equipment cannot be unloaded directly from Aberdeen, will fly the expedi onto the sea ice, but it will be brought tion's Hughes 300 helicopter but not back. from the ship. It will be used first in Antarctica, mainly as a filming plat KEY FIGURES form for the documentary to be made by Axel Engstfeld. Captain Walley Key figures in the Greenpeace trained in the Royal Air Force, has expedition are the campaign director, been a helicopter pilot for the last and the logistics organiser. Peter three years with a British firm, and has Wilkinson, who is 38, is one of the five logged more than 3500 hours com international directors of Greenpeace mercially, some of them on oil rig International and has had extensive support in the North Sea, South-East experience as an organiser of many Asia, and Saudi Arabia. His mechanic Greenpeace campaigns in Britain and is Warren Chmura, a United States other countries. The logistics or citizen who lives in Britain. ganiser 28-year-old Andrew Hill, who A well-known British film-maker, has spent two years at Halley for the Edwin Mickleburgh, who was a BAS BAS as a meteorologist has had meteorologist for two years on Signy to leave the expedition for personal Island, and has been back to Antarc reasons. tica several times to make films, is Greenpeace has been able to call the expedition's still photographer. on other men with Antarctic experi He will produce a book to go with ence for its support team. A 34-year the documentary film. old builder, John Fleming, spent two years at the BAS base on Signy Island SHIP'S HISTORY in the South Orkneys, and was in Master of the Greenpeace is Captain charge of its rebuilding in 1980 81. Peter Bouquet. Most of the crew He was jointly in charge of the have served in the Merchant Marines. building of the new Halley station, Some others have had experience with and deputy base commander in the the Swedish, South African, and the 1983 winter. United States Merchant Marines. A 28-year-old Australian radio A 58m steel ship, she was technician, Peter Norris-Smith, has built at a Dutch shipyard as the been concerned with the organisa Elbe in 1959 and classified as an tion and acquisition of the expedi ocean-going tug. This classification tion's radio equipment. He worked was dropped in 1977 when she was for Australian National Antarctic converted to a pilot boat in Cork, Research Expeditions (ANARE) as a Ireland. radio technician at Casey Station Later the tug was re-registered between 1983 and 1985. as a privately-owned vessel and used Ship's electrical engineer on the by the Association of Maryland pilots Greenpeace is 34-year-old Dermot for pilot duties off Baltimore. She Hopkins. He first went south to was acquired by Greenpeace in April Grytviken, South Georgia, in 1980-81 this year for the Antarctic expedition after more than eight years' with and sailed briefly as the Gondwana the Merchant Marine as an electrical before being renamed the Greenpeace. engineer, and returned in 1983 as Greenpeace International has base generator mechanic/electrician at organised its expedition at a cost of Halley. more than NZ$1.7 million. Captain David Walley, who comes One of the principal functions ANTARCTIC December, 1985 of the Greenpeace expedition is not through the international marine satel only to increase public awareness of lite INMARSAT and provide voice Antarctic issues but also to ensure quality telecommunications through that its activities down south become the telephone network. as widely known as possible. There Most of the commercial traffic fore it has acquired a marine satellite will be sent via INMARSAT. HF communications system and arranged equipment will be used for emergency with a United States TV network to support and for communications with report regularly on the expedition. the ship and other Antarctic stations. When the Greenpeace reaches VHF radio will be used for local McMurdo Sound a site will be chosen communications between the base, near the base for the installation of vehicles, and the helicopter. The the satellite communications system ship's position for communication dish, and a high frequency radio aerial. next year will be approximately The satellite system will operate 77degS/167degE. Australian yacht sails south Barry Lewis, son of Dr David radar, a marine H.F. radio, and an Lewis, who made the first single- Avon inflatable for five people. handed voyage to Antarctica in the After taking delivery of Riquita southern summers of 1972-73 and at Southport near Brisbane the crew, 1973-74, will sail a yacht into the Barry Lewis, Ian Smith (owner), Ross Sea this summer on a three- Peter Gill, Steve Deck, and Phil month voyage. He plans to leave Kelly, sailed her to Sydney by way of Sydney at noon on January 8, first Lord Howe Island. Preparations for for the Bay of Whales, and then to the Antarctic cruise began more than McMurdo Sound where he and his four months ago. crew of four hope to visit Shackleton's Barry Lewis, who runs a sailing and hut at Cape Royds, Ross Island. navigation company in Sydney, sailed In the week before departure from England to Western Pacific in satellite ice reports were not en 1968 aboard the 11.8m ketch Isbjorn. couraging. The pack ice extended Later he operated the Isbjorn from from 72 deg S to 65 deg S - a distance Tarawa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati) of 420 nautical miles. At 177 deg E/ as a trading ketch. She was intended 65 deg S, about 173nm to 260nm to be used by David Lewis for the east of Cape Adare, where Barry solo voyage south in 1972 but was Lewis hoped to enter the Ross Sea, caught in heavy gales on the way to the spread of ice was 10 deg (of Sydney and sank in the New Hebrides longitude) either way. If the ice (Vanuatu). persists the yacht will be sailed west Ice Bird, a 9.75m sloop, was the of Cape Adare to East Antarctica replacement. After David Lewis was along the coast of George V Land. forced to abandon his attempt to Riquita is a 24-tonne steel yawl circumnavigate the Antarctic Con with a 75 h.p. diesel auxiliary which tinent Barry offered to complete the gives her an economical cruising speed third leg of the voyage. Early in 1974 of five to six knots. She is 14.3m long he sailed Ice Bird back to Sydney with a beam of 3.5m and draws from Cape Town, making the 6000nm about 1.82m. Her equipment includes passage single-handed in 86 days. December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Three men who followed Scott's 1911-12 route to the South Pole reached their destination on the evening of January 11 only 70 days after departing from Williams Field on the Ross Iceshelf at noon on November 3. But, as with Scott, there was a sad end to their achievement. Because of our late publication it has been recorded in a footnote to this story. British team make it to Pole Three men who have wintered.at Cape Evans near Scott's hut are on the way to the South Pole. Robert Swan and Roger Mear, leaders of the Footsteps of Scott Expedition, and Gareth Wood, left their base on October 26 to follow Scott's 1911-12 route to the Pole. Hauling food and equipment on plastic sledges, and using cross country skis, the three men plan to complete their journey of 766 nautical miles in 80 days, arriving at the Pole in the third week of January. As Swan, Mear and Wood have no Plateau. advance depots, air support or radio communication, news of their pro- The time allowed to reach the head gress is not expected until they reach of the glacier was 12 days. Scott the head of the Beardmore Glacier and Shackleton laboured for three where the United States has a major weeks but the party can travel faster, geological field camp with helicopter It knows what sort of terrain to ex- support for scientific parties. Their pect from photographs lent by Wally estimate of 40 days to cross the Ross Herbert, the Englishman who led a Ice Shelf would bring them to the New Zealand team down the Axel foot of the Beardmore about Heiberg Glacier along Amundsen's December 13. route to and from the Pole. First news of the team's progress On the 80-day time-table the since November 3 came from a party expects to take 28 days for the geological party working on the final stage across the Polar Plateau Lower Beardmore. The scientists to the Pole. If all goes well the jour- were camped at Cape Allen (83deg ney should end at the Amundsen- 33min S/Hldeg OOmin E) when Scott Pole Station about January they met the three men in the second 21/22. As the party has food to last week of December. Swan, Mear and 90 days an alternative time-table could Wood told the geologists they were change the dates to January 31/ going well and were ahead of their February 1. time-table which provided for them Captain Giles Kershaw, who pro- to start the Beardmore ascent on vided air support for the British Trans- December 13. globe Expedition's crossing of Antarc- Cape Allen, named by Shackleton, tica, will fly the party back from the is a bare rock point 2.6 nm south- Pole in a ski-equipped Cessna 185 with east of Mt. Hope near the mouth of modified fuel tanks for this 1460 nm the Beardmore. The point forms round trip. The dismantled Cessna the west side of the southern approach will be brought south in the Southern to The Gateway leading to the Polar Quest. ANTARCTIC December, 1985

Originally the two Englishmen, Bransfield and John Biscoe. Swan (29) a former tree surgeon, and Mear (35) a professional moun SOUTHERN QUEST taineering instructor, planned to make On November 10 Stroud and the Pole journey. In October they Tolson returned to McMurdo Sound. decided to take Gareth Wood, a They reported that the three men 34-year-old Canadian with Arctic were confident and going well across experience, who had been the base the Ice Shelf. Then they went back commander at Cape Evans since the to their base to await the arrival of expedition's support ship Southern the ice-strengthened former Icelandic Quest departed on February 22 and trawler Southern Quest. The ship left five men in winter quarters. will return to Cape Evans and bring Following tradition the Pole party the expedition back after a charter was expected to begin its journey on by the private Australian Project November 1, the 74th anniversary of Blizzard expedition which will work Scott's departure from Cape Evans. on Mawson's hut at Commonwealth Instead the five men left Jack Bay. In addition an Austrian moun Hayward Base (77deg 38min S/ taineering team which plans to climb 166deg 38min E) built 400m along Mt Minto (4163m) will be landed on the beach from Scott's hut towards the North Victoria Land coast. the Barne Glacier, on October 26. When the Pole party departed it The first stage of 21.5nm was towards left behind at Cape Evans a high McMurdo Station, and the party frequency Clansman PRC320 back camped on the McMurdo Sound sea pack radio because it weighed 5kg, ice between the summer runway the equivalent of almost one week's and Williams Field, the U.S. airfield rations for one man. Both Mear and complex on the Ross Ice Shelf about Wood did a radio course at the British 11km from McMurdo Station. Army's School of Signals last year. It did take, however, an aircraft PARTY DELAYED locator beacon for emergencies. ' The Bad weather delayed the Pole beacon's signal can be picked up only party's departure from Williams Field by aircraft. U.S. Hercules aircraft until noon (local time) on November will be flying between McMurdo 3. About 50 men and women, mainly Station and the Pole until early Americans and a few New Zealanders February but at their normal height said goodbye to the three men, and of 7620m they may not be sighted some accompanied them for about by the men below, particularly in 400m over the ice. bad weather. For the first 43nm across the ice RATION SCALE shelf Swan, Mear, and Wood were accompanied by two Englishmen, Because of the decision to include Dr Michael Stroud (29) medical Gareth Wood the Pole party's original officer at Cape Evans, and John daily ration scale for each man had Tolson, power engineer/radio operator to be revised. When the party left and film cameraman. Like Swan and Williams Field it carried 160kg of Mear both have worked with the food, enough for 90 days, and for British Antarctic Survey, Stroud at a man day ration scale of 592 grammes. Faraday Station in 1980-81, and This amount was expected to be Tolson, a master mariner, as an officer reduced to 108kg by the time the aboard the Royal Research Ships party began its ascent of the Beard- December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

more. McMurdo Sound sea ice to test equip All the expedition's planning has been based on reaching the Pole in ment, sledging rations, and man- hauling technique. Scott's man day 80 days. If the party can cover an ration for five men from the average 21.5nm across the Ice Shelf Beardmore to the Pole was 992 each day, and is not delayed, the man grammes of biscuits, pemmican, day scale could rise to 666 grammes, butter, sugar, tea, and cocoa. giving more food for the arduous In contrast, after 74 years Swan, ascent of the Beardmore. Mear, and Wood have a ration based When the Southern Quest sailed on modern dietary knowledge un from Cape Evans the five members available to Scott. It includes meals of the expedition made winter jour of freeze-dried chicken, rice, and vege neys on Ross Island and on the tables, instant soups, fortified biscuits,

tribution went towards a 12ft sledge Microlites built by a local carpenter. The only Two private expeditions to condition was that the sledge be Antarctica this summer - Footsteps returned to Greenwich as a of Scott and Greenpeace - and the momento after the expedition. It first visit to the continent by Lord was recovered and in 1913 was Shackleton tested the geographical, proudly displayed at the Greenwich historical, and personal knowledge of primary school where it remained some Australian and New Zealand in relative obscurity until a member newspapers. One Australian news of the Footsteps of Scott Expedition paper said the Greenpeace expedition learned of its existence from the was heading for Commonwealth Bay, mother of a pupil. and another was emphatic that its destination was Ross Bay. Robert Swan, co-leader of the Footsteps of Scott Expedition became Robert Don Jack Hayward Base established at when he began his Pole journey. Cape Evans early this year and occupied this winter by three members After Lord Shackleton returned to of the Footsteps of Scott Expedition, New Zealand a leading newspaper told should be due for a name change. It its readers that he had inspected his was named after Mr Jack Hayward, father's and Scott's huts at the South Pole. the British multi-millionaire and philanthropist, who gave the expedi tion more than 20,000 sterling. He is now Sir Jack Hayward, having been A sledge built for Scott's last knighted in the New Year's Honours. expedition in the Sydney harbour Known in the Bahamas as "Union suburb of Greenwich emerged from Jack" Hayward he is chairman of obscurity late this year when the Grand Bahama Development Company Footsteps of Scott Expedition was and Freeport Commercial and Indus preparing an exhibition to raise funds. trial Ltd. His companies established In 1910 Scott was in Sydney trying on Grand Bahama a tax-free industrial to raise funds for his expedition. centre with luxury hotels, shopping Greenwich residents did a quick whip precincts, and one of the world's round to help, and part of their con largest private airports. ANTARCTIC December, 1985 tables, instant soups, fortified biscuits, Nova, and Terror on the way to butter, cheese, raisins, dried bacon Crozier and crossed the sea ice of bars and an egg and butter mixture Windless Bight on their way back to for breakfasts, and chocolate drinks. their hut. Mear made the first winter First of the winter journeys from ascent of Erebus alone in the first Cape Evans was in March. Mear, Wood, week of June, and some of the team and Dr Stroud covered about 43nm went out towards Cape Crozier in in a journey to Cape Crozier. They mid-winter to test equipment and made ascents of Mts Erebus, Terra manhauling techniques again. Support ship sinks minutes before . . . Swan, Mear and Wood reached the ready to fly in the early hours of South Pole on the evening of January January 10. 11, only 70 days after departing Captain Giles Kershaw, pilot of the from Williams Field on the Ross Cessna, and his engineer, Rick Mason, Iceshelf at noon on November 3. But planned to ferry drums of fuel from there was a sad end to their achieve the ice floe to Cape Evans and estab ment. lish a depot in readiness for the flight Soon after their arrival the three to the Pole to await the arrival of men learned from the Amundsen- Swan, Mear and Wood about January Scott South Pole station that a 15. But the sea ice was too rough for message had been received from Cape a runway to be marked out by the Evans. Their support ship Southern expedition's Doctor Michael Stroud Quest had been caught in pack ice and the film cameraman, Captain 3.7 nm east of Beaufort Island John Tolson. As a result the Cessna (76° 65 min S/167° 13 min E) and had to fly to Williams Field. sank shortly after midnight on January First news that the Southern 12. Quest had been pinched between Two helicopters from the United two ice floes when moving into open States Coast Guard icebreaker Polar water came in emergency calls from Star rescued the 18 men, including Cape Evans to Scott Base and the six Austrian Mountaineers, and four Pole Station at 11.40 p.m. and 11.57 women from the sea ice after they had p.m. local time. These calls, passed abandoned ship and flew them first on to McMurdo Station, said the to Beaufort Island and then to Cape Southern Quest had been holed, the Bird on Ross Island. From there U.S. engine room was flooding, the ship Navy helicopters ferried them to was listing, and the crew were McMurdo Station early in the morning abandoning her to take refuge on of January 12. the sea ice. Shortly before midnight Having pushed her way through Scott Base was informed that passen 200 nautical miles of loose pack ice gers and crew were being flown to the Southern Quest had reached open McMurdo Station. water by January 8 and used a large At 5.15 p.m. on January 13 Swan, ice floe off Beaufort Island to off Mear and Wood arrived at McMurdo load a ski-equipped Cessna 185 Station aboard a United States chartered to bring Swan, Mear and National Science Foundation ski- Wood back to the expedition's Jack equipped Hercules. Two days later Hayward Base at Cape Evans. The another Hercules flew all but three Cessna had been assembled and was members of the expedition and the December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Austrian mountaineering party, one Foundation for the transport of of whom was Dutch, back to the members of the expedition and Christchurch. the Austrian mountaineers from Gareth Wood and two members McMurdo Station to Christchurch. of the support team Steve Brodie and Dr P. Wilkniss, director of the NSF's Tim Lovejoy remained at the base division of Polar Programs, says the camp at Cape Evans to clean up and expedition has not been charged for dismantle the Cessna. Swan says a the cost of bringing Swan, Mear and ship will be sent next summer to pick Wood from the Pole to McMurdo up stores, equipment, the aircraft Station or the rescue of the members and the men. from the Southern Quest. The bill A charge of U.S. S30,000 will will be sent from Washington to the be made by the National Science expedition headquarters in London. Shackleton's son reaches Pole 77 years after... On January 9, 1909, Sir Ernest Shackleton reached 88deg 23min S on his attempt to stand at the South Pole. He was forced to turn back only 97 nautical miles from his goal. Almost 77 years later his son, Lord Edward Shackleton, reached the Pole on November 26 as a passenger in a United States ski-equipped Hercules aircraft. Lord Shackleton, who was nearly Scientific and Industrial Research 11 years old when his father died at His visit followed a long-standing Grytviken, South Georgia, in 1922, invitation from the division's direc- had never been to Antarctica before, tor, Mr Bob Thomson, who accom- He flew south from Christchurch to panied him last month. Two other McMurdo Station on November 25 New Zealanders, Lord Elworthy, an in a Royal New Zealand Air Force old friend of Lord Shackleton, 'and wheeled Hercules as a guest of the the Minister of Defence (Mr Frank Antarctic Division, Department of O'Flynn), were also guests of the division. Lord Elworthy, a former TwnJ.YVU FfiUmnPC iLMUHlUe;* Cnief the of post Staff> during R°yal Lord Air shackleton's Force, held uii n A ruiiaivuv n t a r r t i r t e r m RAF a s M(1964-67). i n i s t e r o f D e f e n c e f o r t h e As guests of the United States Two Alaskan Eskimoes, Luther National Science Foundation Lord Leavitt and George Ahmogak, who Shackleton, Lord Elworthy Mr are experts in polar survival techniques, O'Flynn, and Mr Peter Cresswell will spend up to two weeks in O.I.C. at Scott Base, flew to the Pole Antarctica in January. They will in about three hours aboard one of the study and report to the National NSF aircraft. During the flight Lord Science Foundation on survival tech- Shackleton spent much of the time niques used by scientists and support on the flight deck of the aircraft from staff in the United States Antarctic where the navigator was able to Research Programme (USARP). indicate to him how far his father, ANTARCTIC December, 1985

Scott and Wilson, were from the field parties at work in the dry valleys Pole when they too were forced to of the "McMurdo Oasis". turn back in 1902. This point was On the morning of November 27 82deg 15min S, about 465 nautical the three men visited McMurdo miles from the Pole. On November Station to learn something of the 26, 1908, Ernest Shackleton recorded NSF research programme. In the in his diary that he and his com afternoon they flew to Cape Royds panions, Jameson Adams, Eric and Cape Evans to visit the huts Marshall, and Frank Wild, has passed built for Shackleton's first expedition Scott's furthest south point. and Scott's last. What Lord Shackleton described MOVING EXPERIENCE later as "a very emotional experience" was to fly at 305m over the mighty For Lord Shackleton particularly, Beardmore Glacier, gateway to the the visit to his father's hut was another Polar Plateau and the Pole through the moving experience. There he and his Transantarctic Mountains. Shackleton, companions went back in time to Marshall, Adams, and Wild struggled 1908 when Shackleton and 14 other up the glacier for three weeks in men lived and worked together to appalling conditions to reach the prepare for the Pole journey. They head of the glacier named by the were able also to see relics and other leader after one of his backers, Sir aspects of the party's daily life in William Beardmore. Scott followed winter quarters. the pioneers' route in 1911 on his Scott's hut at Cape Evans did not hold the same personal memories for way to the Pole. Lord Shackleton but its interior REACH THE POLE did recall the experiences his father When the group reached the shared with Scott and others in Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station 1901-02. Waiting at the hut to meet it was given a tour of the present their patron were two members of the station's three two-storey buildings Footsteps of Scott Expedition, Dr housed under a geodesic dome, and Michael Stroud and John Tolson, the site of the old station, replaced who wintered at their base nearby, in 1974, and now almost completely and are there while the expedition's buried under snow. Before dinner the co-leaders, Robert Swan and Roger NSF representative at the station, Mear, and Gareth Wood, who left Dr Anton Inderbitzen, gave an histori Cape Evans on October 26, are cal review of man's involvement with attempting to retrace Scott's route the Pole, and the group made a tour of to the Pole. scientific projects in progress. Dr Stroud and John Tolson were With the aid of an RNZAF Iroquois there to invite the group to have a helicopter flown by Squadron Leader cup of tea with them at Jack Hayward Brian Phillips, Lord Shackleton and Base. After visiting Scott's hut the his companions were able to condense group walked about 400m to the more than 80 years of Antarctic expedition's hut. There the English exploration and research by three men and New Zealanders chatted and nations in the McMurdo Sound area drank tea until the time came to into a shorter time span. They saw return to Scott Base. the historic huts on Ross Island, the On November 28 Lord Shackleton, modern New Zealand and United Lord Elworthy, and Mr O'Flynn were States bases, and across the sound flown across McMurdo Sound to December, 1985 ANTARCTIC

Marble Point, up the Taylor and reconstruction; Lords Shackleton and Beacon Valleys, and through Bull Elworthy went fishing. Pass. At the head of the Wright Two motor toboggans towing Valley the first RNZAF helicopter sledges took the fishermen to a fish to operate in Antarctica landed to hut on the sea ice some distance from enable the party to watch a snowcraft the base. There they met an Auckland and survival exercise, and meet the University team, studying the be N.Z.-U.S. training team. haviour of Antarctic fish and their After lunch and an inspection of adaptation to cold, and were Vanda Station, the summer station on introduced to the joys of fishing - the continent in the Wright Valley, Antarctic-style - through a hole the party dropped in on a team of blasted in the sea ice. New Zealand drillers working on a Lord Shackleton caught two fish, joint N.Z.-U.S. seismic project 4.5km and Lord Elworthy six. All were east of Lake Vanda. Equipment for small, but the fishermen were happy, the project was unloaded and the heli and ended a relaxing afternoon by copter back to Scott Base, stopping driving the motor toboggans back at Marble Point to refuel, and to Scott Base. returning by way of Cape Royds Late on the evening of November and Cape Evans. 29 the group boarded an RNZAF A visit to McMurdo Station on Hercules again and flew back to the morning of November 29 marked Christchurch, arriving early the next the group's last day in Antarctica. morning. When he returned Lord After lunch and a briefing on United Shackleton described New Zealand's States operations by Captain David Antarctic research programme as one Srite, Commander, Naval Support of the best in the world for its size. Force, Antarctica, the group returned He was impressed also by the dedica to Scott Base. Mr O'Flynn stayed tion of New Zealanders working at there to meet the team of Royal New Scott Base, on Ross Island, at Vanda Zealand Engineers working on base Station, and in remote field camps. ANTARCTIC BOOKfiTTttTF The Norwegian with Scott

Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910 - 1913 Edited by Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith. Translated by Ellen Johanne McGhie (nee Gran). Published by the National Maritime Museum, HMSO, London 1984 165 x 250mm ISBN 0 11 290382 7 (Antarctic, September 1984, p.280) In the introduction to this book, kept by Gran on the expedition was Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith makes the not available for scrutiny. It is point that the main source for trans- impossible therefore to say for certain lation into English by Gran's daughter whether the text of this English was her fathers own book - Fra edition is a true translation of the Tjuagutt til sydpolfarer (From kid to original diary. This may explain why south polar explorer) published in Griffith Taylor's comments of the 1974. Apparently the original diary prolific writing that Gran appeared ANTARCTIC December, 1985 to indulge in are not reflected in this enjoy his stay in Antarctica. sometimes brief and impersonal record Gran did not have much chance of the more than two years he spent to carry out his specific job of living in the McMurdo Sound region. This book records the thoughts teaching skiing - lack of snow at Cape Evans, bad weather, people being and activities of a vigorous young man too busy to be taught and perhaps setting out on his first adventure into he did not easily adapt to the the Polar regions. Having been turned mindless grind of man — hauling day down as a member of Amundsen's after day on the Ice Shelf. party, Gran had been preparing for his own Antarctic expedition when Gran took part in a trip to Granite he was offered a job as 'ski instructor' Harbour and the account of this by Scott during the motor sledge reflects an enthusiasm and enjoyment trials in Norway. of the topography in the area and of Gran's diaries read more like a his companions, Debenham and present day Alpine Journal account Griffith Taylor. The interaction of a long mountaineering expedition of Gran's felings concerning Amund rather than the sometimes unimagina sen's rivalry and success is touched tive accounts published by other but not dwelt on - another aspect of members of Scott's Expedition. This original editing, perhaps, when Gran is perhaps not surprising as Gran was produced his first book in 1915. the only member of the expedition (Hvor Sydliset flammer - Where the with either alpine/ski background, or Southern lights blaze). living experience in the higher Gran's attitude to life in the polar latitudes. regions is similar to those of the Scott's comments that Gran was present day — heroics usually are the idle are not discussed in this diary — result of inexperience and ill- despite Scott having "bawled him preparedness. out" on one occasion while other This English edition of extracts members of the expedition were from Gran's diaries gives a new slant present. Gran does however record to the polar experiences during Scott's a lack of things to do; the days being second expedition to McMurdo Sound. held up by bad weather spent in the It would be very interesting to have sleeping bag. Perhaps his Norwegian access to the full original diaries. temperament and his ability to live with nature allowed him to actually - Jan and Arnold Heine

fcXPLOHfcHbcvninocDc j I and SlHddMM«ial7M)htFfMiT)MP(it I m«HiT*M*SMkJM«t»l. EXPLORATION Shackleton Amundsen Scon Byrd Ellsworth Fuchs

The routes Amundsen & Scott took to reach the South Pole New Zealand Antarctic Society Inc.

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