Ice-Free Areas In Antarctica

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28130, 20 November 1956, Page 20

Ice-Free Areas In Antarctica

NEW YORK. November 19. American aerial surveys have revealed extensive snow-free areas within 350 miles of the South Pole, the “New York Times” reported. At least two of the large bare areas sighted were potential airfield sites where gravel runways could be levelled out for year-round use by small aircraft.

The report came from a “New York Times” correspondent at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, with members of the United States “Operation Deep Freeze” party. The correspondent said that in three recent flights that had been made from McMurdo Sound to the Pole, barren plateaux and valleys where there was no snow or ice for many square miles had been sighted in the 700-mile belt of mountain ranges straddling the route to the Pole. It was believed that the ice sheet covering the Antarctic Continent had shrunk until its surface was about 1000 ft lower than it was at its maximum. The correspondent said each new flight enlarged the information about the mountain region and made more evident the complexity of its geography Many more mapping flights would be necessary before its tangle of canyons, gorges, ridges, escarpments, and snaking glaciers could be unravelled and charted.