Sunday 18 December 2005
The Therons and A80
I've been lucky enough to get a couple of flights in the last few days. The first one was a co-pilot flight to the Theron Mountains, which are about an hour and a half from Halley. Apparently the Therons were the last mountain range to be discovered on foot in Antarctica, possibly the world. They were found by Vivian Fuch's party during the Transantarctic Expedition in 1958 and were named after the ice-strengthened ship that dropped off the advanced party.
BAS maintains a fuel depot there so we went out with five drums of Avtur to add to the existing stocks. The plane burnt about the same amount of fuel to make the journey as we depoted - it's a costly business getting fuel down here. In fact if you take into account all the the costs involved each drum of Avtur that might cost £100 at source is worth around £1500 by the time it reaches this far south - that's about £7.50 ($14) per litre!
As well as dropping off the fuel we also picked up the last remnants of an old field campsite, which meant we got to fly along the length of the range past some very spectacular scenery. The campsite was used last summer for a geology field project - it must have been a great view to have when you looked out your tent in the morning!
The next day I got another trip, this time to a site called A80 which is at 80 degrees south just beyond the Shackleton mountain range. As well as depoting more precious fuel we went to take apart an old science hut which is no longer needed. These AGOs (Automated Geophysical Observatories) are kept warm by batteries charged up by solar panels and wind generators, and provide enough power to run several experiments throughout the winter. Each year we return during the summer to collect the data and do any maintenance that is required. They have been running for almost 15 years and have been very successful, but as the scientific aims have moved on they have now become obsolete. The Antarctic Treaty requires us to remove any structures we are no longer using to minimise our environmental impact.
So with crowbars in hand we set about dismantling the hut. It was designed to be bolted together from pre-made sections which would fit in the plane so it was pretty straightforward to take apart. It was a beautiful sunny day which makes every job that much easier down here. We packed what we could into the plane and depoted the rest to be collected on another flight before returning to Halley.
I've put up another gallery with more photos from the trips.
Posted by simon at 9:40 PM | Feedback (10)