Warm weather helped Antarctic programme

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 20

Warm weather helped Antarctic programme

Christchurch people may not rate this summer as being one of the more memorable weatherwise but warm weather in the Antarctic considerably speeded up New Zealand’s summer research programme there. The superintendent of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Antarctic Division, Mr R. B. Thomson, said that the elements had worked in the programme’s favour this season. He said that the division usually calculated on a 30 per cent loss of time because of bad weather each summer, but this summer only 5 to 10 per cent had been lost. Preparations for New Zealand’s largest single research project were even hampered by the warm weather. The Cenozoic Investigations in the Western Ross Sea (CIROS) project is an offshore drilling programme to record the sediments in McMurdo Sound from the present to preglacial times about 60 million years ago. This year work concentrated on erecting a drilling camp at Butter Point in McMurdo Sound in preparation for next season’s drilling. Mr Thomson said that

there had been a lot of melting around the camp site and this had led to buildings sinking into the ice at acute angles. “They suffered some damage, but not damage that can’t be repaired,” he said. Cables connecting the buildings broke when the buildings moved apart. This problem was not likely to get any worse however, Mr Thomson said. Hallett Hallett Station, which had not been used since 1973, was the subject of a joint New Zealand-United States

inspection to assess if it was worth re-opening. Hallett is the only station in the Antarctic to have been run jointly by the two countries. Mr Thomson said it would be best to dismantle the station and remove it completely, returning the site to the penguins. The station is the site of a rookery, of 250,000 Adelic penguins. “Finally we may put in one new building to support small scientific teams and to act as a refuge hut for any emergency that might arise in the area,” Mr Thomson said. The station was in bad repair. It had rapidly deteriorated in warm weather with melt material causing the floors to rot. Winter team The 10 men left at Scott Base for the winter have a larger area to maintain than previous winter groups, since the summer’s work on a new communications centre. “It will be so much better for them,” Mr Thomson said. “In the years to come we will probably have to

have a larger team to cope with the larger area.” Next season The programme for the 1984-85 summer season will be decided by the end of March. The highlights will be the CIROS project, which will begin drilling next season, and a three-nation geophysics and geological programme in Northern Victoria Land, involving West Germany, the United States, and New Zealand. Forty-eight scientists will be involved in the project, which is planned over one season at this stage. They will be working with a new aircraft, a Dornier, supplied by the Germans. Applications Eight hundred applications have so far been received from people wanting jobs with the New Zealand programme next season. Applications close on Saturday. Appointments will not be announced until June, although the officer in charge will be named before that.