Visit To Balleny Islands

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30393, 18 March 1964, Page 1

Visit To Balleny Islands

No firm conclusions as to the feasibility of a two-month New Zealand scientific expedition to the Balleny Islands next summer had been drawn by the party which made a preliminary visit there from the United States ice - breaker Glacier, Dr. T. Hatherton, leader of the party, said yesterday. The Glacier docked at Lyttelton on Monday.

The islands straddle the Antarctic Circle, 200 miles off the Oates Land coast. They are considered important zoologically, Dr. Hatherton explained, because they and the Antarctic Peninsula on the other side of the continent provide the only land habitats between the sub-an-tarctic islands and the continent proper. From the standpoint of geophysics, they are interesting as being on the Macquarie Ridge which joins New Zealand to Antarctica via Macquarie Island. The islands are part of New Zealand’s Antarctic claim, frozen for 30 years under the Antarctic treaty. Landing Difficult

The party was sent by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to examine the scientific desirability of a full-size expedition, and to assess whether the project was feasible. The three large islands of the group were almost impossible to land on, except perhaps with a helicopter on the tops, Dr. Hatherton said. They looked rather like wed-ding-cakes, with big ice-caps from which avalanches of ice and rock fell down 600 ft cliffs which rose sheer from the sea. These islands were about 10 or 12 miles long. The highest point was about 5000 ft. The two islands on which landings were made—Sabrina and Borradaile—were much smaller, each being only about an acre in area. They were built on the same gene-

ral pattern as the others, but reached only to 600 ft or 700 ft, with cliffs perhaps 200 ft high; the landings were made by helicopter on shingle beaches about mean sea level which protruded from some of the corners of the coastline.

The party landed on Sabrina for three hours and a half, and on Borradaile for about an hour. In all, they were in the area for about two days, the rest of the time being spent charting the islands and taking oceanographic samples, the oceanographic work revealing a very rich sea life.

In the cliffs, “literally millions” of sea-birds were nesting, including Cape pigeons and several species of fulmars and petrels. A few seals were seen on the beaches and pack-ice, mainly Weddell seals.

The pack ice mainly occupied the western half of the sea between the islands, but Dr. Hatherton thought this was probably only a quirk of the weather: the ice might equally well have been in other parts of the area. The surrounding ocean was relatively free of pack-ice, but a considerable number of ice'bergs were seen. One of the difficulties in deciding for or against the establishment of a base was that the climate was not properly known, except that the ice-caps were evidence of a considerable snowfall.

During their time in the area Dr. Hatherton, who is officer of the Geophysics Division of the D.5.1.R., made measurements of the earth’s gravity and magnetic fields, but the results have yet to be examined in the general con-

text of readings elsewhere. The United States Navy made an aerial photographic coverage of the islands for the expedition, and the Glacier traversed 333 miles taking depth soundings. , Dr. Hatherton thought any expedition sent to the islands would need to be a summer party—“initially, at any rate.” A major problem would be immobility, as travel between or on the islands would mostly be impossible except with a helicopter; moreover, a satisfactory site for a land base would be difficult to find, and the expedition would probably be best to work from a ship. It might be possible in the winter to move from island to island across the pack-ice, but this would be hazardous as there would always be lanes in the ice because of tides and currents.