Snow Sets Problem At Lonely Antarctic Station

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30312, 12 December 1963, Page 14

Snow Sets Problem At Lonely Antarctic Station

Accumulating snow was the greatest single problem tor the 11 men who wintered at Eights station. America's newest and loneliest scientific outpost in Antarctica, said the station's first scientific leader (Mr J. Kauffman > in Christchurch.

The 11 buildings of the station, flown to its location in the heart of Ellsworth Land last season, were now under sft of snow. Plans to dig the building out and move them to another place nearby had been abandoned, said Mr Kauffman. For most of the winter. Eights station was under snow, and strong northerly and southerly winds piled drifts of up to 13 feet high around the buildings. Although the second scientific party has already moved in and begun research projects, Mr Kauffman considers that next summer the camp will have to be dug out and moved. It had been left this season, he said, because it was found that it would be easier to move one of the conjugate-point stations in Canada instead.

Over the winter, Mr Kauffman said, five scientific programmes were carried out, and most of the planned research was completed. The programmes involved studies of aurora and airglow, weather observations, lowfrequency radio waves, magnetic observations, and an ionospheric study. The five scientists and six

Navy men had kept them-* selves busy shovelling snow< and doing their research. < About 200 film* were shown.’ games such as darts and cards ' were played, and many of the-, 500 books in the station library were read. Because of the skill of s’ Navy cook, meals throughout? were excellent "We had an amazing variety: shrimps, fob-’ ster tails, chicken, trout. New ' Zealand lamb and liver—just about everything bar fresh eggs, milk and green salads," he said. The coldest temperature re-, corded at the station was 87 ■ degrees below zero, or M de-* grees of frost. The warmest weather was in June, when an unusual temperature of 31 ’ degrees was recorded. Mr Kauffman said that Eights station was known as a "minimum facilities" camp. “We tried to get the job done with the least expenditure and without frills. It is a pretty austere place. But for all of that it was a rewarding experience," he said. ’