The remains of Camp Michigan
JAMES H. ZUMBERGE The University of Nebraska Lincoln, Nebraska 68508
Those aboard USNS Eltanin s cruise 51, in February Camp Michigan (fig. 2). The camp was established in 1972, sighted dark objects in an upper edge of the Ross 1957 as a base for the Ross Ice Shelf Deformation Proj- Ice Shelf (fig. 1). McWhinnie (1972) speculated that ect during the International Geophysical Year (IGY) the objects were the remains of Little America IV (es- (Zumberge et al., 1960). tablished in 1947), and Baker (1972) suggested that Two lines of evidence are available to deduce the they were part of Little America I and II (established origin of the objects (fig. 3, X-72). One is the absolute in superposition in 1929 and 1933, respectively). movement, based on geographic coordinates plotted over Further study proves that neither explanation is cor- the years, of several stations in the Roosevelt Island-Bay rect. The objects seen on cruise 51 were the remains of of Whales region. The other stems from snow burial
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Figure 1. Artifacts In the ace of the Ross ice Shelf at 8° 32 S. 164°10 W. as s •n from USNS Eltanin on F. nj. ary 18, 1972. This Is X-7 In fig. 3. Roger Fay
84 ANTARCTIC JOURN L FIgu. 2. Camp Michigan, Febr ary 1958. The camp was established in Novem- ber 1957 at 78°34 S. 163 57.3 W. The small hut on t e left is a sled-mounted Wan gan and the structure on the right is a prefabricated hut about 2.5 meters high. Be eon the two is a cache of tood and miscellaneous cam gear covered by a tar- Pau n. The two weasels in the ,ackground were not left at the camp. I
and from physical appearances of objects as corn- of five stations, "Framheim" (fig. 3, F), Cape Manhue to the camp s configurations at times of abandon- (fig. 3, M), Little America I (fig. 3, LA I), Little Amer- ica III (fig. 3, LA HI), and Camp Michigan (fig. 3, CM), shows a remarkably consistent direction of move- ment for all except Little America III which had a more movement northerly direction than the others. The movement anal- ysis shown in the table and plotted on fig. 3 leaves little doubt that the objects (fig. 3, X-72) seen from Eltanin line connecting the geographical positions of a are the remains of Camp Michigan. This identification is single camp at two different dates defines a vector of ice made because a fiowline, based on the movement of shelf movement. Two successive positions of a point on Camp Michigan between 1957 and 1963, is the only one the ice shelf represent two points on a flow line (not in the area that could end at point X-72. Moreover, X-72 necessarily a straight line). The future position of a could not have been Little America IV, as suggested by known point on the ice, therefore, can not be predicted McWhinnie, because part of that camp was seen in the pr cisely by simply extending a movement vector based Ross Ice Shelf s face in 1955 (Sullivan, 1957), and be- on only two previous positions of that point. The gen- cause Little America IV was erected to the north of Lit- eral direction of the point s movement and the general tle America III. The movement of Little America IV rate of movement, however, can be deduced by this also would have been in a northerly direction, similar means. to Little America III, and this does not put it at X72.1,2 Wexler (1960) used the changing coordinates of sev- eral ice shelf stations to measure ice shelf movement in an area bounded by Roosevelt Island, Kainan Bay, and The U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office Antarctic Strip Chart, th Bay of Whales. Davis (Giovinetto and Zumberge, Little America V to Byrd Station (chart number 16834-11, 6th 1968) charted the paths of capes "West" and "Man- edition, September 1963), and the U.S. Navy Air Navigation hue," in the Bay of Whales vicinity, from 1912 to 1955. Chart, Antarctica, McMurdo Sound to Weddell Sea (chart Cape West was on the Bay of Whales west side and number V30-SP11, 12th edition, August 1968), show Little showed erratic movement toward the northeast during America IV on the Ross Ice Shelf at about 78 0 32.9 S. 163°53.- 7 W., about 6 kilometers east of the 1962 ice front. Both maps the 43 years. Cape Manhue, on the east side of the Bay are inaccurate in this respect. In 1955, Walter Sullivan per- of Whales embayment, moved in a fairly consistent di- sonally observed that Little America IV was being destroyed rection to the northwest. by calving. 2 When plotted on a map (fig. 3), the coordinates of Polar Times (number 56, June 1963) reported the sighting by the U.S. icebreaker Edisto of remains of what appeared to several pairs of points give the total absolute movement be Little America III in a 16-kilometers-long iceberg 500 kilo- of the ice shelf. The change in geographic coordinates meters west of Kainan Bay.
May-June 1974 85
1643OW t84O0W consisted of a prefabricated wooden hut, a small sled- mounted wanigan, and a cache of food and miscellaneous LAPII- items stacked between the two structures andcovred ROSS SEA with a tarpaulin. Camp Michigan again was occupied during the 1958-1959 austral summer and was a1an- doned at the end of that field season. In Decenber 1959, the camp was visited and photographed (fig. 4). ^LA111 - 40 Bay of Whales + 7W40 The hut and wanigan by that date were buried benath • snow. x•nS Fig. 5, a telephoto of X-72 taken from aboard Elt nm ROSS ICE SHELF on February 18, 1972, shows two rectangular feahires separated by several smaller elements. The two rectangu- 29 lar features could be the Camp Michigan wanigan ind hut, and the objects between could be food remains ind MAP OF PART OF THE r•34c ROSS ICE SHELF an equipment cache covered by a tarpaulin (fig 2). e ANTARCTICA increased separation of the wanigan and hut in fig 5, Showing the thcS0, and 9th9eae8t of abandoned bases 9.88.58 Roosevelt bthod and the I8.,s Se. compared with the separation in fig. 2, could be the re- ft sult of horizontal strain that occurred from 1957 to 1 .c, 72. The amount of snow accumulation over the top of the dwellings is difficult to determine from fig. 5 be- + 7840 S cause of an irregular snow cornice, but it appears to be between 3 and 4 meters. Giovinetto (Zumberge et al., Figure 3. Map showing location of artifacts seen from EUanin In 1960) measured 3 meters of snow/firm accumula ion February 1972. The artifacts are identified as X-72. on the crest of a snow anticline in the Camp Mich i an area during the 15 years before 1958. This is furt er Ice velocities for all bases shown on fig. 3 and re- evidence that X-72 is Camp Michigan. corded in the table indicate that the only base intact in the Bay of Whales area by February 1972 was Camp Michigan. All others have trajectories that place them Conclusion well beyond the edge of the ice front by that time. The evidence leaves little doubt that objects sighted in February 1972 from Eltanin were the remains of Configuration of the X-72 objects Camp Michigan. The trajectory of ice movement (based on the geographic coordinates of Camp Michigan in Figs. 2 and 4 are photographs of Camp Michigan 1957 and 1963), the configuration of the remains, 4nd that were taken in February 1958 and December 1959, the amount of snow/firm accumulation above the c respectively. The camp, when vacated in February 1958, support this conclusion.
f / $ / JdL Figure 4. Camp Michigan In NV December 1959. A mound of snow has almost covered the prefabricated hut, and sev- eral bamboo poles mark ti. camp. The "Christmas tree" and flagstaff of three barn. boo poles (standir.j in front \A of the hut in fig. 2) were net — yet burled by snow. _ $ 86 ANTARCTIC JOURNAL
References
Baker, 13. A. 1972. Personal communication. Court, A. 1948. Meteorological data for Little America III. Monthly Weather Review, Supplement, 48: iii. Departnient of the Interior. Office of Geography. 1956. Geo- grap Ic Names of Antarctica. Gazetteer, 14: 194. Washing- ton, .C., Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Print ng Office. Dorrer, E., W. Hofmann, and K. Nottarp. 1964. The Ross Ice Shelf Survey (RIss), 1962-1963. Antarctic Research Series, 2: 84-118. Giovin tto, M. B., and J. H. Zumberge. 1968. The ice regime of th e eastern part of the Ross Ice Shelf drainage system. In- terna ional Association of Scientific Hydrology, 79: 255-266. Gould, L. M. 1935. The Ross Ice Shelf. Geological Society of America. Bulletin, 46: 1367-1394. Griffiths, K. H. 1972. Personal communication. McWh nnie, M. A. 1972. USNS Eltanin cruise 51: biological study of the Ross Sea. Antarctic Journal of the U.S., VII(3): 59-61. Mohn, H. 1915. Roald Amundsen s antarctic expedition, scien- tific results: meteorology. Sterifer udg. af Nidenskabsselska- betChristiania. Part I, Mat hematik-Natur, Klimat, 4: 38-72. Poulte T. C. 1947. Seismic measurements on the Ross Ice Shel . American Geophysical Union. Transactions, 28(2): 62-170; 28(3): 367-384. Roger Fay Sulliv n, W. 1957. Quest for a Continent. New York, Mc- Gra -Hill. 304. Figure 5. Telephoto of artifacts (point X-72 in fig. 2) seen from p. Eltanin in 1972. The bamboo poles to the left of the old camp Wexi , H. 1960. Heating and melting of floating ice shelves. probably were put there by the Ross Ice Shelf Survey party when lou nal of Glaciology, 3(27): 626-642. they visited Camp Michigan in January 1963. Zum rge, J. 1958. Preliminary report on the Ross Ice Shelf def rmation project. International Association of Scientific Zumberge, 3., M. Giovinetto, R. Kehle, and J. Reid. 1960. De- Hy rology, 47: 56-63. formation of the Ross Ice Shelf near the Bay of Whales, Zumberge, J. 1959. Unpublished photo mosaic of the area be- Antarctica. IGY Glaciological Report Series, 3: 41, 45. New tween the Bay of Whales and Camp Michigan. York, American Geographical Society.
Geographic coordinates of selected Ross Ice Shelf bases in the Bay of Whales area, including their magnitude and direction of movement
Map symbol Name of base Date of Latitude Longitude Distance Years Azimuth Velocity Reference position S. W. (meters) (N=O ) (myr1) F-li - Framheim 1911 78"38.0 163037.0 8,516 23 3020 370 Mohn (1915) F-34 Framheim 1934 78° 35 .6 163° 56.0 Poulter (1947) M- 12 Cape Manhue" 1912 78° 35 .9 163° 50.0 19,500 43 3020 453 Giovinetto and M-55 Cape "Manhue" 1955 78° 30.2 164035.0 Zumberge (1968)
LA 1-29 Little America 1 1929 78° 34.0 163048.0 9,401 28 2980 336 Gould (1935) LA 1-57 Little America I 1957 78° 30.8 164° 07.7 Zumberge (1959)
LA 111-40 Little America III 1940 78° 30.0 163° 50.0 7,538 17 3510 443 Court (1948) LA 111-57 Little America III 1957 78° 26.0 163° 53.2 Zumberge (1958)
CM-57 Camp Michigan 1957 78° 34.0 163° 57.3 2,727 5.2 3130 524 Zumberge (1958) CM-63 Camp Michigan 1963 78° 33 .0 164c 02.7 Dorrer et el. (1969) CM-63 Camp Michigan 1963 78° 33 .0 164002.7 3,278 9.1 3040 360 Dorrer et el. (1969) X-72 Ice Front Artifacts 1972 78° 32.0 164° 10.0 Griffiths (1972)
Office of Geography (1956) gazetteer number 14, Geographic Names of Antarctica, p. 194, gives the coordinates of Little America I in 1929-1930 as ". . - about 78°40.5 S. 164°03 W." This differs significantly from the coordinates, regarded as the authoritative source, published by Gould (1935). Gazetteer number 14 gives the coordinates of Little America III in 1939-1941 as 78 0 35 S. 163 0 52 W. In this paper the coordinates of Court (1948) are taken to be the correct ones.
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