TREK ACROSS ANTARCTIC

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 1

TREK ACROSS ANTARCTIC

A party of 10 scientists was expected to leave the Plateau Station yesterday on a 1200-inile, two-month journey across part of Queen Maud Land, one of the last unexplored regions of the Antarctic.

The party is led by Mr N. W. Peddie, of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The journey is the third leg of a 5000-mile, four-year traverse of Queen Maud Land to the Belgian Roi Baudoin base on the Princess Ragnhild Coast. It began from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the-1964-65 season.

the end of this season’s journey the vehicles and other related equipment will be left in the field for the final leg next December.

During the traverse the scientists will investigate the ice thickness (the ice cap is known to be more than two miles deep in places); the characteristics of the ice sheet and bedrock interfaces; snow accumulation; and make glaciological and meteorological studies and a continuous profile of the total magnetic field. One of the members of the party is a Norwegian exchange scientist, Mr Y. Gjessing, from Norsk Poiarinstitutt, who will make glaciological and meteorological studies.

The 10 men will travel in large tracked vehicles and will receive supplies by three air drops. About February 1 a ski-equipped Hercules will pick up the men and take them back to McMurdo Station.

There was no journey last season, when the vehicles underwent an overhaul. At