Russian Plans For Antarctic Trek

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28701, 26 September 1958, Page 7

Russian Plans For Antarctic Trek

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 7 p.m.) STOCKHOLM, September 24. Russia’s change of plans for its Antarctic expedition seems to have been partly determined by the crossing of the southern ice-cap by Sir Vivian Fuchs and his team. British United Press reported.

The attempt, taking a Russian expedition through parts of the Antarctic never visited by man, begins next month, and will end next year. Moscow broadcasts have given some details of the expedition, which will be a climax of the work of the biggest scientific .expedition Russia has sent overseas as its contribution to the International Geophysical Year, said the agency. The work of the Russian expedition began in 1955, with the dispatch of three vessels, carrying 8500 tons of supplies, including helicopters, aircraft, tractors and prefabricated houses, for the Knox Coast of the Antarctic.

The first job was the establishment of the Mirny Observatory on the coast of Queen Mary Land and about 1600 miles from the South Pole.

The Mirny Observatory is to be the starting point of what Moscow calls the “gigantic triangular” crossing of the Antarctic. The second biggest Russian Antarctic . station after Mirny, the Vostok station, set up at an altitude of about 11,000 feet above sea level and in the area of the South Geomagnetic Pole, is about 800 miles from Mirny and about half-way along a “slightly bent” line drawn from Mirny to the South Pole.

Vostok is the first staging point of the Russian expedition when next spring comes, the expedition will travel on to the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility, turning at the Southern Geographical Pole.

Its destination after turning at the Pole is “towards the shore of the Atlantic to complete its 3728mile journey at the Lazarev Station,” said a Moscow broadcast.