Scott Base staff swells

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 22

Scott Base staff swells

PA Wellington The population of Scott Base swelled by 33 last week after the first flights to McMurdo Sound this season, the Antarctic Division of the D.S.LR. has said. New Zealand scientists, drillers and construction workers flew to Antarctica on one of eight flights made by United States Navy Hercules planes. The flights were the first into McMurdo since February, and among the items they carried were supplies for the 11 men wintering at Scott Base. The New Zealanders who flew down included five

Army construction workers and five Ministry of Works and Development staff. The construction team will finish interior work on the new geomagnetic laboratory at the base, continue site preparation for a planned garage and workshop complex, and install a new laboratory hut at Arrival Heights. The scientists and drillers are working on the Ciros drilling programme — the largest of the 46 projects in the 1984-5 New Zealand Antarctic research programme. Ciros (cenozoic investigations in the western Ross Sea) involves scientists from

New Zealand, the United; States, and Japan, and is« sponsored jointly by the D.S.I.R. and Victoria Uni-„ versity’s Antarctic research* programme. ' The project aims to drill; four holes in McMurdo J Sound to take core samples from below the sea bottom. ; The core samples will tell ? geologists more about the; development of the Antarc-? tic ice-sheet and the rise of; the trans-Antarctic mountains. Drilling will start in mid-; September and continue un- > til early November, when; the sea ice will become too; thin. *; 4, &