CONTENTS Pages 1-2 Letter from FoM President Pamela Karran-Thomas Pages 2-3 Plans & Events from mid ‘12 onwards
Pages 3-5 Technology: Gilies’ Replica Wireless to Digital Era
Pages 5-10 Comment on Events, News & Views, and Reviews of Mawson’s Last Survivor: Alf Howard, by Anna Bemrose; Shackleton’s Dream: Fuchs, Hillary and the Crossing of Antarctica by Stephen Haddelsey From the President’s desk 2012~April Dear Friends of Mawson
The 2012 AGM at the Mawson Laboratories on 8th of May. As we draw closer to this event, I thought you may be interested in a short report on the Mawson related projects undertaken by our committee in 2011/2012. · We have recently produced a brochure showing Mawson related sites in the Adelaide city area and further afield in the state. Our intention is that the brochure be made available to The Museum, tourism agencies and schools. This colourful and educational brochure is due to be released shortly · During 2011, David Noon designed, constructed and donated a special storage box for the glass lantern slides we use in our Lantern Slide presentations. We have now fitted an engraved plaque to the box to acknowledge his donation. The box resides in the collection · The production of a DVD version of our successful Glass Lantern Slide show is well under way · December 2011 saw the opening of a new Department of Education (DECD) North East Science Trade Training Centre for secondary students. The centre was funded by the Federal Government and a laboratory has been named after Douglas Mawson. In conjunction with this honour, FoM will award a $1000 one off scholarship to be presented at the Adelaide Convention Centre in November this year. Various Education and Government representatives were present at the opening including Federal and Local MPs. The centre is now operating and students are showing much interest in the stories of the scientists whose names were given to the laboratories, most particularly Mawson. This of course was our aim so it is very pleasing for the committee. Projects still in progress are: · Digitization of The Collection catalogue and availability on line · Collaboration with the Museum Education staff to enhance the Mawson message to student museum visitors
Our committee has certainly had a busy and successful Mawson Centennial year.
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Special thanks go to Alan Blakers. Alan has been our Treasurer for a number of years and continued in the role even after he moved to Tasmania. He has recently handed over to committee member Clive Amis. We are particularly pleased that Alan has agreed to continue as Webmaster, so he is not lost to us. Alan, long may your association with FoM continue! We look forward to seeing you all at the AGM. Pamela Karran-Thomas President
PLANS & EVENTS mid 2012 onwards The following Mawson or Polar-related dates being planned
Note for teachers: the following link is useful for those with an interest in film: http://australiansatwork.com.au/mawson/mawson_sc7-8.php
Mawson’s first trip to the Flinders Ranges. RSVP Mark 8207 7574.
Science at the Ri Australia Journey to the Abyss was a unique exhibition drawing on specimens from SAM’s own collections and may succeed in touring, so watch out for this treat – you can even ask your local museum if they are considering being a venue.
Mawson’s Expedition on film This year marks the centenary of Event date: Wednesday 2 May Adelaide’s Douglas Mawson’s 2012 - 06:00pm to 07:30pm pioneering Australasian Antarctic It has been 100 years since Sir Expedition. While other Antarctic Douglas Mawson’s Australasian explorers went to explore the Antarctic Expedition, a pioneering continent and its land, Mawson’s scientific exploration. Contact expedition went for the purpose [email protected] or 71208600 for of scientific exploration. more details of this free event at the State Library. Event date: Tuesday 5 June 2012 - 06:00pm to 07:30pm FoM 12th AGM: 8th May at the Mawson Laboratory, University of Adelaide followed with a talk by In a unique event, scientists and Jim Jago and Barry Cooper Antarctic experts will revisit Mawson’s expedition and reveal
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No.2/2012 News Update. AGM soon! what was discovered about Call for proposals to present at Antarctica. The State Library’s the IV Antarctica Art and Culture Valerie Sitters will talk about what International Conference & the expedition set out to achieve; Festival in Buenos Aires: Jim Jago from UniSA will discuss the geology of Antarctica; Martin http://www.livingdata.net.au/conte Crowe will look at the nt/SurPolar/2012conference.php meteorological features of the home of the blizzard; and John Cambridge University’s Scott Kirkwood from the University of Polar Research Institute will Queensland will detail the findings have a small display relating to on the ecology of Antarctica. Mawson in the not too distant future – more details on this to Free, booking is essential: follow. (They, together with [email protected] Canterbury Museum and the British Museum, collaborated on To be livestreamed: riaus.org.au/livestreaming the Scott Exhibition, reviewed in an earlier newsletter and now on display at the British Museum.)
In The Footsteps of Rymill A Polar Conference & Festival 18 February 2013. Rymill South American style 5-9 enthusiasts will be very interested September 2012 Art exhibits to know that Peter Rymill will be and papers that relate to artistic guest lecturer on board Akademik research in Antarctica are Ioffe. For more details contact welcome. However, the event One Ocean Expeditions and Active aims to extend connections Travel between disciplines. Connections (http://www.activetravel.com.au/index.php) with scientific disciplines, are encouraged, as are new approaches to familiar challenges, such as the marine resource and climate change debates. While the primary focus of the conference is Antarctic, papers which combine Antarctic and Arctic material are welcome.
Technology: Gillies’ Replica Wireless to the Digital Era Members may have heard something of media reports from Aurora Australis over summer as it finally successfully commemorated Mawson’s party landing at what became Cape Denison 100 years ago (plus four days – and about 100km west from Orion’s most southern position where several FoM memebers (as well as your editor) were to be found).
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cast
Audience members in front of Replica. © M. Fore
cast A extremely interested audience listened to Fore
. John Gillies talk about Dr Mawson’s greatest © M technological innovation on the AAE: the first use in Antarctica of radio telegraphy – or better known as simply up, with artefact - ‘the wireless’. Many thanks John, and to Rob Close John Gillies, Rob Gurr (MI ’53) and Bill Butler (M ’67) Gurr for a real artefact.
‘At a small gathering of 26 people representing the Antarctic community, the Director of the Australian Antarctic Division, Dr Tony Fleming, read the Prime Minister’s message which acknowledged the significant contribution to science that stemmed from the expedition. The Prime Minister said Sir Douglas Mawson was a man of generous and intrepid spirit drawn by what he called ‘the passion of a great adventure.’
… “Mawson and his colleagues undertook their epic journey not for profit or fame, but to extend the boundaries of human knowledge and to advance the cause of science.”
She described the Australasian Antarctic Expedition as “the last in the heroic age of exploration and a feat of human endurance the like of which we may never see again.”
Douglas Mawson was knighted for his Antarctic endeavours by King George V in 1914.
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The Prime Minister’s message is now sealed in a time capsule to be left at Commonwealth Bay... Along with the Prime Minister’s message, the time capsule contains the winning competition entries from Australian students who were asked for their vision of Antarctica in another hundred years, and a range of documents relevant to today’s Antarctic program.
“In the years since those early explorers made their first faltering steps on Antarctica, our research has taught us much about the continent and how its physical and biological systems function,” Dr Tony Fleming said.
“An entire continent devoted to peace and science – what a wonderful legacy the Australasian Antarctic Expedition has left us. We must be ever vigilant to ensure that we can hand that legacy on to our grandchildren,” he said.
The event was also marked by the raising of the Australian flag above the Main Hut, the same place where Mawson and his men raised the flag in January, 1912… …Due to the continuing presence of an iceberg at the entrance to Commonwealth Bay and the build-up of sea ice behind the berg, helicopters were used to ferry expeditioners from the research ship Aurora Australis to land.
(http://www.antarctica.gov.au/media/news/2012/antarctic-centenary-celebrated-at-mawsons-home-of-the-blizzard)’
Mawson's Last Survivor: The Story of Dr Alf Howard AM
RRP: AU$32.95; approx 264 pages (57 illustrations, including a number of Frank Hurley photographs); ISBN: 9781921920189. Boolarong Press
his own lifetime. He was the last surviving member of Sir Douglas Mawson’s 1929-1931 British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) and was also the last survivor to have served aboard the coal-fired three-masted wooden ship Discovery built for Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s 1901-1904 Antarctic odyssey. As a young chemist and hydrologist on board the Discovery, going south with Mawson was the catalyst for his long distinguished career with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Subsequently, Alf was at Alf Howard (1906-2010) sailed with the University of Queensland, where legends of the heroic era of Antarctic he was awarded degrees in physics exploration and became a legend in and linguistics and completed a PhD
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in psychology. For more than twenty years he designed computer programs and provided statistical advice to postgraduate students and staff until he was 97. The call of Antarctica was too strong to resist and during the 1990s he returned four times.
Illustrated, including a number of Frank Hurley images, Mawson’s Last Survivor, The Story of Dr Alf Howard AM, is a fascinating account of a humble Antarctic pioneer with a wry sense of humour who was the last link with those heroic early twentieth century expeditions which continue to excite the public imagination. ______
Investigating the Investigator ‘Work on Australia’s new $120m Marine National Facility (MNF) research vessel, Investigator, moved from the drafting table to the shipyard today.
Cutting the steel for the vessel started in Singapore, heralding a new era in marine and atmospheric research for scientists.
Australia’s ocean territory is the third largest in the world and includes unique biodiversity and valuable resources and marine science is critical for the sustainable management...
…Toni Moate, who is attending the steel cutting ceremony in Singapore, said the 93.6 metre
resentation of the new vessel resentation of the new vessel ou an idea of how she will look
Not an exact rep Not an exact rep but this gives y research vessel will be capable of conducting marine research from our coastal waters, to the Antarctic ice edge and to the tropical waters to the north.
The contract to design, build and commission the vessel was awarded to Teekay Holdings Australia, which partnered with the Sembawang Shipyard in Singapore because of its track record and strong commitment to new technologies and innovation.
“The equipment on board our new world-class vessel will for the first time allow Australian scientists to carry out advanced atmospheric research on board the Marine National Facility,” Ms Moate said.
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“It will also be capable of mapping the seafloor six kilometres below the surface, conducting deep water coring to 24 metres and will have the latest satellite communications technology.”
Investigator will be operated by CSIRO and will be available to all Australian marine scientists.’ It replaces the existing MNF 40 years old ship Southern Surveyor.
(http://csironewsblog.com/2012/01/31/work-starts-of-new-marine-research-vessel/)’
Shackleton’s Dream Fuchs, Hillary and the Crossing of Antarctica
by Stephen Haddelsey Published in hardback March 2012, ISBN: 978-0-7524-5926-4 The epic story of the last great expedition of the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic exploration In 1914 Ernest Shackleton embarked on what he called ‘The last great polar journey’ – the crossing of Antarctica. His expedition ended in disaster, with the Endurance crushed and the corpses of three explorers left in the frozen wastes. Forty years later Vivian Fuchs and Edmund Hillary, the hero of Everest, set out to succeed where Shackleton had failed. Despite the passage of four decades, the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955–58 encountered many of the obstacles that had so hindered Shackleton – a chronic shortage of funds, inadequate equipment and an early onset of pack ice. Even more disastrously, it also suffered from a clash of personalities so severe that it nearly destroyed the expedition from within. Shackleton’s Dream tells the full dramatic story for the first time.
Haddelsey is the author of two books for The History Press, Ice Captain: The Life of Joseph Russell Stenhouse, and Born Adventurer: The Life of Frank Bickerton. He lives in ottinghamshire. More details can be found at www.thehistorypress.co.uk
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Titanic Time April seems to have been a month dominated by the Titanic centenary. There are not many links between this ship’s sinking, and Antarctic exploration, nor in particular Mawson’s exploration, but a few do help to add slightly to the context of what was happening then: Sir Ernest Shackleton testified at the subsequent Inquiry into the sinking, though he was asked what if any expertise he had in North Atlantic icebergs (none); while Kathleen Scott, who was sailing en route for New Zealand when she was informed of her husband’s death (a year after it had occurred), recorded that she had been reading the published report into the Inquiry into the Titanic; when disturbed by the unfortunate ship’s officer charged with delivering the telegram to her. Closer to home, a copy of the London Illustrated News left at the Main Base, was later found by one of the Mawson’s Hut conservators to contain an article on this dramatic event, while of local interest to South Australia/western NSW, Broken Hill, the town which provided the meeting place where Mawson and Paquita first really met, also supplied the musicians’ band made famous by playing during the actual sinking. (Below left) The iceberg thought to have sunk Titanic
Interest in the Titanic recently led to the site – which is quite extensive, and has considerable stability in terms of water temperatre (around 1 degree C) and currents – being given special UNESCO protection, but is it generally known that some experts give the wreck itself only 20-30 more years, before the structure collapses into a pile of fine red rust? Read on: ‘In less than 30 years, there may be nothing left of the Titanic but a heap of 'rusticles', warns researcher Henrietta Mann, who has spent four years researching bacteria gnawing on its sunken hull.
A scientific expedition in 1991 to the disintegrating wreck some 3,780m to the ocean floor revealed the formation of rust similar to icicles or stalactites in appearance hanging off the massive ship. They normally occur underwater when wrought iron oxidises.
Mann, a biologist and geologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, obtained samples from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Canada and scrutinised them under an electronic microscope. She discovered that bacteria, not a chemical process, were behind these particular deep water formations.
Munching on the hull
Mann identified dozens of bacteria, including one never seen before, which she dubbed Halomonas Titanicae, that had been 'munching' on the steel hull and busily transforming it, atom by atom, into rusticles, some as tall as men.
Invisible to the naked eye, measuring only 1.6 micrometres in length, the bacteria have multiplied into billions over the years. "The Titanic is 50,000 tons of steel," Mann said. "So, there is plenty of food for my bacteria."
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Counting the bacteria
The bacteria also appear to find delicious the ship's windows, stairways, and gates - all made of rough iron - as well as its cast iron furnaces. "They eat these as well," Mann said. Only the brass is not being touched.
"I don't know the speed of eating of the iron by the bacteria," but comparing the earliest photos of the wreck with the latest it is clear that rapid change is occurring. "Maybe in 20 or 30 years the wreck will collapse [into a] heap of rust," she said.
Mann recorded 27 bacteria living in the rusticles, some with tentacles, as well as tubeworms and other tiny creatures, in a symbiotic colony, which means each symbiont entirely depends on another for survival.
Disposing of it all
The first of them were likely created by diatom (unicellular algae) in 'marine snow' - dirt from the surface. One bacteria then produced others and together they formed a chain and then a net, more bacteria grew over the net and holes filled in and finally the structures hardened into rusticles with channels inside where water circulates. "Its structure is like a sponge," Mann said.
The disintegration of the Titanic would certainly mean a tremendous loss of heritage. But at the same time her discovery offers hope: all of the old ships, oil rigs and cargo that fall to the bottom of the sea will not pile up like garbage. Bacteria will eventually dispose of it all.’ (Left) ‘Rusticles' from the Titanic Some estimates put this Titanic disintegration happening in over a century, but regardless of the time-frame, the protection recently afforded by UNECO is of course concerned with human disturbance of the site, regardless of the natural condition of the wreck. It is interesting to think of this other historic unoccupied cultural site of extremes – alongside that is Cape Denison – confronting as it does such unique conservation issues that it means no action will be taken to disturb the site. This is particularly so given the attempts to actively conserve Mawson’s Hut, as well as other polar structures and sites, and the danger these sites face from humans, particularly in the form of would-be-collectors.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS ON With over three years of planning, the Orion Group was chosen by the Waterhouse Club to provide an opportunity of a lifetime to visit the Antarctic 100 years after Douglas Mawson established the first Australian mainland base in the Antarctic. A cruise in the Soutthern Ocean is an oxymoron but everyone seemed to enjoy the trip, the sumptuous food and the weather. Prof Suzanne Miller , Mark Pharaoh and Peter Shaughnessy were part of the scientific team used by Orion to give lectures and assist with giving the centenary trip a South Australian and SA Museum flavour. With 19 days travel the lecture component was essential to fill in the time and to educate the passengers in the history of the exploration of the Antarctic and sub- Antarctic Islands, along with information on life in the Antarctic.
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The animal life is exceptional and the lecture series by SAM staff and the Orion staff gave the travellers a good knowledge of the plentiful array of birds, particularly the king & royal penguins and one very rare red poll seen on Macca, the orcas, the rare hour glass dolphin, seals and elephant seals. Suzanne’s geological lectures provided new insights into sub–ice-Antarctica along with the later creation of Macquarie Island, the little green sponge. Mark gave many lectures on Mawson the man and the history of polar exploration. Thanks to Mark 11 passengers were selected by physical athleticism (with folded arms one was required to lie on the floor and then get up unaided by “front legs”) as well as chance, to climb Wireless Hill. Here we experienced sun, snow, hail, and rain with good winds and the sighting of about 3 feet of remaining wireless mast. To see where the two wireless operators slept every night adjacent to the masts made us marvel at the way they must have struggled to climb the hill after dinner every night in those conditions typical to Macca.
S tation leader Trish MacDonald – also guide on the Wilress Hill climb - and (right) visiting veterinarian Tim Tolley, carrying out at Sandy Bay a examination of one of the specially trained dogs assisting in e radicating feral wildlife. Tim wrote this article and supplied the photo. One of the Mawson Centre ‘vols’, he also plans the Waterhouse Club expeditions, including the Arkaroola Camel trip (2011), a forthcoming Wilkins weekend around Burra (’13) and a proposed Mawson New Hebrides trip being talked about for 2014. Many thanks Tim. The Editor.
Alun Thomas (DM’s grandson) gave a wonderful overview of the history of Mawson’s Hut and the Project Blizzard Expedition to Commonwealth Bay in 1985 he was a member of. Every ship visiting the Antarctic requires an ice pilot, who by law takes over control of the ship. He was particularly important on this trip as the 120 miles of pack ice out from the coast slowed progress considerably- down to a couple of knots due to the most unusual amount ice and days of fog. The slow progress caused problems with the desalinator being non functional due to the slower engine not heating the water adequately which normally allows the desalinator to work; hence cold showers for 4 days. Icebergs were plentiful with imaginations running riot over what could be seen in these impressive creations. The sight of Adelie penguins tobogganing around ice packs was hilarious. So was their fear of the leopard seals! We got to Mertz ‘s glacier, in fact where it was last year before it broke off. We were close to the continent but unable to land. The realisation that Mawson’s Hut was beyond reach had been made prior to departure, and our nightly updates on the progress of other groups attempting to make the Hut made us feel slightly more appeased as only a few were helicoptered in there this summer. Fifty-five members and associates of the Waterhouse Club were the lucky participants in this memorable journey and supported SAM – which enjoyed a ‘travel agent’ fee from Orion for each. The financials were consequently very favourable for SAM with over $140,000 being contributed to the Foundation, and ultimately the Mawson Trust being the beneficiary.
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