I.G.Y. TEAM FOR BYRD BASE

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28133, 23 November 1956, Page 14

I.G.Y. TEAM FOR BYRD BASE

YOUNG ARGENTINIAN INCLUDED

Mr Mario Giovinetto, a 23-year-old Argentinian glaciologist, who has already been on three Antarctic exneditions and has led a climbing party,, to the Summit of 19.320 ft Kilimanjaro, in Tanganyika, will be one of the International Geophysical Year party of scientists at the American base to be built in Marie Byrd Land.

Last year, after climbing in Kenya. Tanganyika and Uganda. Mr Giovinetto was in Durban when Sir Edmund Hillary, leader of the New Zealand Antarctic expedition, was speaking on the British party’s ascent of Mount Everest.

When he returned home to La Plata he had an invitation to join the party which the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Institute of the United States was sending to Greenland. This led to his choice as a member of the American I.G.Y. team. Mr Giovinetto. who reached Lyttelton this week aboard the U.S.N.S. Joseph F. Merrell, is an assistant glaciologist, working with Mr Vernon Anderson. With the other members of their team —two scientists and a mechanic —they will leave from Little America in three Sno-cats. following the tracks of the trail-blazing party now finding their way to the site of the Marie Byrd Land base.

Every .five miles they will put down a core drill to take samples of the ice. Every 25 miles—the distance they hope to cover each day—they will dig. by pick and shovel, a 12ft pit. By taking the cross-section of the ice—either in a core sample or on the walls of the pit—they can read off the seasonal depths of ice. rather in the same manner as a botanist reads the rings on a felled tree to learn about past seasons. Once at the Marie Byrd Land base they will dig the biggest pit of all—anything up to 200 feet deep, depending on their energy, the weather, and the need. From this they will be able to build up a history of climate in that part of the Antarctic over many seasons.