South Pole Station

Fig. 11-3 Direct atmospheric measurements of the CO2 concentration (left-hand scale) at Mauna Loa (Hawaii) and the South Pole station (Keeling et al., 1995) together with the concurrently observed decrease in atmospheric oxygen content (right-hand scale) at La Jolla, CA after 1989. (Taken from Heimann (1997) with permission from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.)...

Rosen, J. M., N. T. Kjome, and S. J. Oilmans, "Simultaneous Ozone and Polar Stratospheric Cloud Observations at South Pole Station during Winter and Spring 1991, J. Geophys. Res., 98, 12741-12751 (1993). 

Frequent readings of the pressure drop across the filter or, at RAMP stations, across a fixed orifice, and of the temperature are submitted to EML along with the filters to permit the calculation of the volume of air that was sampled. The filters from most sites are returned to EML for analysis at the end of each month. Because of transportation difficulties, the samples collected at the South Pole Station, Mawson, Marion Island, Palmer and Marsh Antarctica during the winter months are retained at the sites until they can be shipped to EML. This adversely affects the detection and the precision of measurements of short-lived radionuclides in these filters. 

Fig.1.25 OneofthemoderntractorsusedbytheCommonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1955-1958) led by V.E. Fuchs nearly fell into a large crevasse. In spite of its precarious situation in this photograph, the tractor was recovered and the tractor train continued to South Pole Station and eventually reached Scott Base on Ross Island (Photo Royal Geographical Society, reproduced by permission)...

The weather of Antarctica is proverbially hostile to life but actually varies widely depending on the season, the latitude, the elevation, and on local factors. The average monthly temperatures at McMurdo and South Pole stations in Fig. 2.3 display the range of seasonal temperature variations at these locations in relation to their latitude, elevation, and topographic setting ... 

Fig. 2.3 The average monthly temperatures at McMurdo Station range from -26.9°C (August) to -3.1°C (December and January) compared to only -59.9°C (July) and -27.7°C (December) at the South Pole Station. The low seasonal temperature profile of the South Pole is partly attributable to its high southern latitude (90°S) and the high elevation of this site (2,835 m above sea level), whereas McMurdo Station is located at 77°50 S latitude at sea level on Ross Island. Nevertheless, the average annual temperatures at both sites are below the freezing temperature of water (Data from Stonehouse 2002)...

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). 

Fig. 2.12 (a) Entrance to the geodesic dome at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in December of 1982 (Photo by T.M. Mensing). (b) The new building at South Pole Station contains dorm rooms, laboratories, office space, a cafeteria, and... 

In addition to other science facilities, the South Pole Station includes a seismological observatory that has operated since 1957. This facility was greatly improved in January of 2003 when a new observatory was placed into service about 8 km from the main building. The sensor of the seismograph at the new facility is located in a borehole at a depth of 300 m below the surface where it is not affected by vibrations caused by the diesel-powered electric generators and other activities at the main station. As a result, the South Pole seismological observatory is now virtually free of locally-generated seismic noise and therefore is ideally suited to detect earthquakes that occur elsewhere on the Earth. 

The USA maintains three research stations in Antarctica at McMurdo on Ross Island, at the South Pole, and Palmer Station on Anvers Island in the Palmer Archipelago. These stations are a major component of the US Antarctic Program that is administered by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation which is funded directly by the Congress of the USA. McMurdo and South Pole stations have been operated continuously since the IGY on a year-round basis, whereas Palmer Station opened in 1965. These stations provide facilities for research to scientists who either work at the stations or in the field outside the stations. 

In the following year, Dreschhoff and Zeller (1978) reported a similar result from a snow pit in Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica where they found a peak in the activity profile at a depth of approximately 3.3 m. Subsequently, they tested the snow in a pit near South Pole Station which was more than 10 m deep. The resulting gamma-ray activity profile in Fig. 11.18... 

Fig. 11.18 The gamma-ray counting rate of snow and firn in a pit close to South Pole Station decreases with depth but rises at 1.4, 3.1, and 4.4 m. These peaks represent fallout from the testing of nuclear weapons between 1970/71 at Mururoa Island (1.4 m), thermonuclear detonations in September of 1961 (3.1 m), and tests that ended in 1958 (4.4 m) (Picciotto and Wilgain 1963). The background activity decreased with increasing depth because the detector was increasingly shielded from cosmic rays. The year of deposition of the snow was determined by counting layers in the walls of the pit (Adapted from Dreschhoff and Zeller 1978)...

Fig. 17.24 The values of freshly fallen snow at South Pole Station during the 12-month period from November 1964 to October 1965 are approximately correlated with surface temperatures (line A, equation 17.5) and with atmospheric temperatures (line B, equation 17.6). Only the condensation temperature at which snow flakes formed in the atmosphere above South Pole Station were plotted. Note that the data points based on surface temperatures are not shown. Line C (equation 17.7) is from Aldaz and Deutsch (1967) and is based on atmospheric temperatures. These quasi-linear relationships provide a basis for estimating surface temperatures as well as condensation temperatures from the 6 0 values of snow, fim, and ice (Data from Aldaz and Deutsch 1967)...

Kumai (1976) identified the aerosol particles in snow flakes deposited at South Pole Station and Delmas et al. (1985) reviewed the deposition of volcanic dust in Antarctica. The formation of anions from occluded gases was discussed by Delmas (1982), Delmas et al. (1982a), Herron (1982), Legrand and Delmas (1984, 1987, 1988), whereas Hanappe et al. (1968), Ragone and FineUi (1972), Delmas et al. (1982b) reported chemical analyses of snow and ice in Antarctica. 

The first ice cores from East Antarctica that were available for the study of stratospheric dust were drilled at South Pole in 1974 (Thompson, E.M. 1979) and at Dome C in 1977/78. The South-Pole core was 101 m long and extended 900 years into the past. The seasonal accumulation and resulting stratigraphy of snow at South-Pole Station was described by Gow (1965), whereas Thompson and Mosley-Thompson (1981) published a profile of dust concentrations in the core. 

Layers of ice containing disseminated particles of volcanic origin (i.e., tephra) are a common feature of blue ice areas and in the vicinity of volcanic vents in the Transantarctic Mountains. Volcanic tephra have also been found in the ice cores drilled at South Pole Station, Dome C, Vostock Station, and at Byrd Station, as well as in the glacial deposits that cover the floor of Wright Valley (Jones et al. 1973b Boger and Faure 1988). 

The ice core drilled in 1983/84 at South Pole Station contained a 3-mm tephra layer at a depth of 303.44 m (Palais et al. 1987). The tephra are composed of vesic-nlar glass with crystals of quartz, pyroxene, and pla-gioclase. The bulk chemical composition of these tephra plots close to the boundary between the andesite and benmoreite fields in Fig. 17.44 in strong contrast to the tephra in the cores at Byrd Station and Dome C (See also Koeberl 1990, Table 1). 

Palais JJ, Kyle PR, Mosley-Thompson E, Thomas E (1987) Correlation of a 3,200 year old tephra in ice cores form Vostok and South Pole stations, Antarctica. Geophys Res Lett 14(8) 804-807... 

Table 18.15 Abundances of extraterrestrial spherules (50-800 pm) released by melting ice in a large cavity at the South Pole Station (Taylor et al. 2000)...

Dressier BO, Grieve RAF, Sharpton VL (eds) (1994) Large meteorite impacts and planetary evolution. Special Paper 293. Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO Duce RA, ZoUer WH, Jones AG (1971) Atmospheric particle and gas sampling at McMurdo and South Pole stations. Ant JUS 6(4) 133-134... 

Our robot is designed to operate in interior Antarctica, which is characterized by low snowfall, moderate winds, and extreme cold. We envision networks of robots, guided by GPS and onboard sensors, that are launched and retrieved from the South Pole Station during the austral summer. Key design issues are outlined below. 

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