University Antarctic research programme

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32666, 23 July 1971, Page 12

University Antarctic research programme

The University of Canterbury’s Antarctic research unit will continue its zoology and marine biology studies at Cape Bird and in McMurdo Sound this summer, said Professor G. A. Knox, the programme co-ordinator and director, yesterday.

A party will remain at Cape Bird .throughout the summer. The unit’s research programme on penguins and skuas -in this area will also be continued. Professor Knox, who is professor of zoology at the University of Canterbury, said that the university’s Antarctic programme was divided into three parts: seal research; the study of marine plankton; and the marine benthic study using the trimaran which was taken south last summer.

Of the nine men who will be working in the Antarctic, he said, six were working for higher degrees. Seal research will be conducted by Mr D. J. Greenwood, senior technician in the zoology department, who will be assisted by Mr J. Bennett, the department’s photographer who later will go to Cape Bird to record activities there. A third person may go down to help in this programme, said Professor Knox. The study of marine plankton through the ice near Scott Base will be the job of Mr T. J. Carryer and Mr G. D. Fenwick.

A party of four will work at Cape Bird, where the major research will consider the ecologv of bottom-living animals. The leader at Cape Bird this summer will be Mr J. K. Lowry, who was the deputv leader last year. Mr G. Knight, a marine zoologist, will assist; and another member has yet to be named. A student from the university’s geography department, Mr R. Goldsborough, will study the process of beach formation and shallow water sediments.

Mr D. Thettle, of the de- 1

partment’s technical staff, will carry out diving at Cape Bird, along with Mr Goldsborough. Mr Thettle previously carried out diving with the Americans in McMurdo Sound during his studies into seal behaviour. Professor Knox said that Mr Carryer would return to New Zealand early in January in order to join the United States scientific research ship, Eltanin, which will make a cruise to the Ross Sea, He will collect plankton samples. All the university party will be down working on the continent by mid-November, he said.