Antarctic Lichens At Higher Altitude

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30038, 24 January 1963, Page 11

Antarctic Lichens At Higher Altitude

(New Zealand Pres* Association)

SCOTT BASE, Jan. 22. Antarctic lichens growing at higher altitude and further inland than thought ever before recorded in the Ross Dependency were discovered by a New Zealand Antarctic Research Programme field party which returned to Scott Base last night. The four-man party, with two dog teams, spent the last 12 weeks in the northern mountains of Victoria Land. It surveyed sufficient country to add maps of 25,000 square miles to New Zealand’s Ross Dependency series.

In the party were H. S. Gair, leader, geologist, of Christchurch; K. Pain, deputy leader, of Westport; J. A. Tobin, surveyor, of Hamilton; and M. J. Sheehan, field assistant, of Invercargill. Lichens—tiny plant growths clinging in rock cracks—were collected at three different mountain stations ranging from 3000 ft to 7000 ft. “We found lichens where rocks were not weathering and in windy places. They seemed to have been carried by the wind as previously they have only been found on the coast,” Mr Gair said.

The area contained far greater amounts of volcanic

rock than was expected. Several geologically recent volcanoes were found and thought to be about the same age a* the still smoking Mount Erebus, near Scott Base. No minerals of economic importance were found.

In 79 days in the field, the party lay up on 20 because of blizzards, climbed a 13,000 ft volcano and found fossil tree stumps 3ft across.