Tekapo venue for Antarctic ‘preview’

Press, 15 August 1980, Page 4

Tekapo venue for Antarctic ‘preview’

About 1300 men and women will leave Christchurch today for a week’s training at Tekapo to prepare them for the summer season at Antarctica.

The course, organised by ther Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, will include lectures and snowcraft exercises.

The New Zealanders and Americans will leave Christchurch on August 25. I One of the main projects jat Scott Base this season I will be to continue the re--building programme which iwar, started four years ago. |A building team of 16 will | start the third stage of expansion, an ablution and accommodation block for 80 people. The outer shell of the

block should be finished by the end of the season. A laboratory and a power house have been built since the rebuilding programme began. • The summit of Mount I Erebus, a volcano, will be the centre of a study by New Zealand, American and Japanese scientists to learn more of the relationship between volcanic activity and I deformities of the earth’s crust.

Marine and seismic studies will be made between New Zealand and Ross Island by six scientists from the Geophvsics Division of the D.S.I.R. and Victoria University. They plan to spend 10 days on board the Benjamin Bo'wring, the support vessel for the transglobal expedition, which is

expected to arrive at McMurdo Sound early in the New Year.

The movement of the sea ice at McMurdo Sound caused by sea swell and aircraft landings will be measured by scientists from Waikato University. Continuous studies involving seismic, meteorological and upper atmospheric recordings will be done at Scott Base. New Zealand’s Vanda Station, 130 km west of Scott Base, will again provide bare support facilities for summer field parties working in the Dry Valley region. This year the New Zealand staff based there will be the hosts for two American meteorological scientists while they do their studies at the outlying station.