McMurdo Base, Ross Island, Antarctica

Fig. 2.8 McMurdo Station of the USA and Sott Base of New Zealand are both located at the southern tip of the Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island. Castle Rock is a mass of hyaloclastite that rises to 413 m above sea level (a.sJ.) and is located about 6 km northeast of McMurdo Station. Cape Evans and Cape Royds contain the huts from which Robert Scott rmd Ernest Shackleton started their treks to the geographic South Pole, respectively. The Erebus Glacier Tongue is a prominent landmark for scientists traveling from McMurdo Station to Cape Evans and Cape Royds. The summit crater of Mt. Erebus is at 3,794 m a.s.1. (Adapted from the topographic map of Ross Island, Antarctica (ST 57-60/6, 1970, US Geol. Survey))...

Antarctic Studies. Possibly some of the most constant temperatures of ice-ocean waters exist in the Ross Sea of Antarctica, particularly on the western end of Ross Island along the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in McMurdo Sound. The U.S. National Science Foundation has operated a biological research laboratory at McMurdo Base (a U.S. Navy installation) for nearly two decades, and nearby is the smaller New Zealand installation, Scott Base (12). The Antarctic program of the authors laboratories began in 1964 under the auspices of the U.S. National Science Foundation at McMurdo Base on Ross Island (12). Research programs varying from two to five months in duration were conducted in each of seven different years in that vicinity. 

American scientists and support personnel who are scheduled to work in the Transantarctic Mountains or on the polar plateau of East Antarctica, in Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica, and at South Pole Station will, in most cases, depart from Christchurch, New Zealand, and fly to McMurdo Station which is located at the tip of the Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island in Fig. 2.8 (Section 1.2). This site was originally selected in 1955 by Admiral George J. Dufek as a logistics base for Operation Deep Freeze in preparation for research to be carried out by American scientists during the IGY (1957-1958). The site was chosen because it is located in a broad basin adjacent to a deep harbor where supply ships can unload cargo either onto a floating ice dock or directly to the shore. These favorable conditions also caused Robert Scott in 1901 to select this site for his winter-over base where he set up his Discovery Hut in Fig. 2.9 which still contains some of the equipment and supplies that he and his men left behind (Section 1.4.1). 

We begin this chapter with descriptions of the lava flows that were erapted by the volcanoes of the Erebus volcanic province because they are accessible from McMurdo Station and Scott Base on Ross Island, because Mt. Erebus in Fig. 16.1 is the only active volcano in all of Antarctica, and because the volcanoes on Ross Island were discovered in January 1841 by James C. Ross and R.M. Crozier who named Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror after their small wooden sailing ships. Even at that time, Mt. Erebus was active and has remained so to the present (Section 1.1). The first description of the volcanic activity on the summit of Mt. Erebus was provided by Ross (1847, p. 216, 220-221) on January 28,1841 ... 

Fig. 16.11 Ross Island consists of volcanic rocks that were erupted by the three principal volcanoes Mt. Erebus, Mt. Bird, and Mt. Terror. The island is separated from the mainland of Antarctica by McMurdo Sound where the sea ice breaks up in late December allowing cargo ships to dock at McMurdo Station on the southern tip of the Hut Point Peninsula. The south side of the island from Scott Base at the tip of the peninsula to Cape Crozier is in direct contact with the Ross Ice Shelf. Ross Island contains rookeries of Adelie penguins at...

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