Salt in Antarctica

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 3

Salt in Antarctica

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

SCOTT BASE, January 29. A team of geologists from the University of Waikato says that a large deposit of salt at the bottom of an Antarctic lake could be exploited commercially. The University of Waikato party is led by Professor A. Wilson, the director of the school’s Antarctic research unit. The salt is at the bottom of Lake Bonney, about 65 miles west of Scott Base, in the Taylor Valley. Professor Wil-

son said yesterday that he i estimated there was i 1,000,000 tons of salt at the i

bottom of the lake. He said his team found the salt while drilling into the bottom of the lake to take a series of core samples of lake sediments for later geological analysis. Instead, the drilling yielded 2 ft cores of large crystals of sodium chloride —common table salt. “We were not actually looking for salt,” Professor Wilson said. “We were studying the stratigraphy of the lake to find out more about the past climate of the valley. The amount of salt we found could only have

come from the sea and indicates that the sea was once in the valley.”

Professor Wilson said the salt could be removed from the lake by dredging. It could then by transported overland by tractor train across two glaciers to McMurdo Sound, where it would be loaded into ships. “It is probably the only mineral in Antarctica that there is any possibility of exploiting at the moment,” he said. “But of course the environmentalists would tear their hair out if anyone tried it. The lake’s natural environment would be damaged beyond repair.”