It occurs to me this morning that by combing through all of the inspection reports, I can gather data about time and distance between stations. None of the inspection tours go very far-- which is consistent with a 60,000 mile perimeter rather than a 15,000 mile sphere perimeter. If inspectors were ambitious and serious, they could mount missions that did a complete circumnavigation. Not a single one has done that.
ATS - Antarctic Treaty system
Here's a video report- -a brief report-- from Royal Navy, on one of their inspection tours. The verbal description of how Antarctica is to remain "unsullied" is, of course, nonsense since there is a lot of activity going on. I'll look for more video reports. This one has no detail whatsoever. I posted a comment asking why there hasn't been a complete circumnavigation inspection.
ATS - Antarctic Treaty system
Here's a video report- -a brief report-- from Royal Navy, on one of their inspection tours. The verbal description of how Antarctica is to remain "unsullied" is, of course, nonsense since there is a lot of activity going on. I'll look for more video reports. This one has no detail whatsoever. I posted a comment asking why there hasn't been a complete circumnavigation inspection.
Captain Rory uses the term "The Antarctic Community". I find that phrase comical. Here's another wacky example of "the community" -
ReplyDelete2004 style
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/history/exploration-and-expeditions/modern-expeditions/this-week-in-antarctica/2004/davis/antarctica-a-truly-international-community
Antarctica: a truly international community
note the Balloon was "brought down" to stop it going out to sea on its "transnavigation" of Antarctica.
NASA - which put all those people on the moon.... - has to use the Australian Antarctic Division to find it near their base. What happens if it ends up in the "middle" of nowhere?
BTW the Bulgarian department of the Antarctic Community which Cap'n Rory dropped in on unannounced [perhaps] is off the tip of the continent in the South Shetland Islands.
The community also literally steal fuel from fuel depots from one another. That's why they all keep their own fuel depots secret. With a community like that, who needs it?
ReplyDeleteThe inspection tours are also suspicious from the point of view of objectivity. Note that all the tours are carried out by almost all the different countries with bases, depending on the year. In effect, there is no one single authority. I note too that they always seem to pass inspection with flying colors. Not once have I seen a station that was cited for egregious violations. It looks like a chummy drinking club to me. It might be fake.
Finally, the fact that there was only ONE circumnavigation inspection tour-- from rothera to McMurdo-- which cut out the McMurdo to Rothera quarter-- but nonetheless was the most complete around-the-continent tour I've seen-- in 1983-- is suspicious. Why not have a multinational team do the inspection on a circumnavigated route-- by air?
There's another curious thing-- why are these inspections NOT carried out by an air-transported team? Why I seeing all the inspection done from ship? And why are inspections mostly "partial" involving several stations in one stretch and that's it?
Note too that 80% of the personnel in Antarctica are support staff. Only 20% are scientists. Thats what I read somewhere-- as if those are the only two categories. No military percent. That's strange. McMurdo is highly militarized from the looks and sound of it.
As far as international community goes... there is no international involvement at the south pole. It's all US as far as I can tell.
What about the bit of Antarctica which doesn't seem to be part of "The Community" - Marie Byrd Land, the Unclaimed sector, which once housed allegedly Russkiya base?
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how the Executive Committee Range of Mountains came to be named.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Committee_Range
....which is effectively a US claim - being the Executive Committee of the United States Antarctic Service
http://www.south-pole.com/p0000109.htm
which discovered it...on a flight, December 15, 1940,
The entire range was mapped in detail by USGS from surveys and U.S. Navy trimetrogon photography**
**not much information here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimetrogon
http://gcmd.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/Metadata.do?Portal=amd&KeywordPath=Parameters|SOLID+EARTH|GEOMORPHIC+LANDFORMS%26%2347%3BPROCESSES|COASTAL+LANDFORMS&OrigMetadataNode=GCMD&EntryId=USARC_AERIAL_PHOTOS&MetadataView=Full&MetadataType=0&lbnode=mdlb3
The U.S. Antarctic Resource Center (USARC) is located at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Va. It maintains the nation's most comprehensive collection of Antarctic aerial photography, maps, charts, satellite imagery and technical reports
There is scentfic actvity in this range.
DeleteAbstract: The West Antarctica Volcano Exploration (WAVE) project was conducted to gain an understanding of the volcanic and geochemical evolution of intraplate volcanoes in West Antarctica and to compare volcanism and lithospheric structure of West Antarctica with documented parallels in the Ross Sea embayment. In the first season of this project (1989/90) the Executive Committee Range (ECR) was visited. ......Detailed mapping and extensive sampling (for geochronological and geochemical study) was undertaken on Mt Sidley and Mt Waesche with reconnaissance sampling at Mt Cumming. Lithospheric xenoliths were recovered from mafic scoria cones and deposits on Mt Waesche, Mt Sidley and Mt Cumming. In the second season of this project (1990/91), the ECR was revisited to complete studies at the northern end of the range. Samples for geochronology and geochemical study and lithospheric xenoliths were collected from Mt Hampton and the USAS Escarpment (Mt Aldaz). The Mount Murphy Volcanic Complex (MMVC) was also visited. Detailed mapping extensive sampling (for geochronology, geochemical analysis and lithospheric xenoliths) was completed at Mt Murphy only due to weather constraints. Examination of lithospheric xenoliths will enable reconstruction of a complete section of the lithosphere from mantle depths to the upper crust.
and...
Abstract: Lithospheric xenoliths are a convenient and relatively cost efficient means of gaining an insight into the petrology of the deep earth. As such, they provide important information on lithospheric structure and processes and can be used to gauge thermal regime and possibly , the timing of events. Lithospheric xenoliths were collected in the 1989/90 and 1990/91 season from Marie Byrd Land, West Antarctica, including Mt Waesche, Mt Sidley, Mt Cumming, Mt Hampton and the USAS Escarpment (Mt Aldaz) in the Executive Committee Range and Mt Murphy in the Mount Murphy Volcanic Complex. Further samples were collected in the 1992/93 season from the McMurdo Volcanic Province at a number of localities on and adjacent to Ross Island (Hut Point Peninsula (Half Moon Crater, Sulphur Cones, Turtle Rock) and Cape Bird), Black Island and in the foothills of the Transantarctic Mountains (Foster Crater on the Koettlitz Glacier). The majority of the samples collected in the 1992/93 season supplemented a collection compiled from the 1982/83 and 1984/85 season.......
sources: http://gcmd.nasa.gov/KeywordSearch/Freetext.do?Freetext=+executive+committee+range&action2.x=8&action2.y=12&KeywordPath=%255BLocation%253A%2BLocation_Category%253D%2527CONTINENT%2527%252C%2BLocation_Type%253D%2527ANTARCTICA%2527%255D&Portal=amd&MetadataType=0
There's also a link in the Wiki article for the Executive Range to a recent research paper based on a recently deployed seismic network.
I'd love to know who went mountaineering in the EC Range and how. I'm guessing it was from Siple dome
There's a page here which describes Twin Otter flights over Marie Byrd Land
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/WAIS/
map:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/WAIS/glac_map3.jpeg
. The aerogeophysical data set covers a 300,000 km2 region in West Antarctica (Figure 1). The survey area is covered by a grid of orthogonal flight lines spaced 5.3 km apart in both directions consisting of 150,000 line kilometers. Flight elevation varied from 1600 m to 2500 m
Unfortunately there's no info about the flights. They would certainly require a lot of refuelling.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1999/ofr-99-0420/cwant_surveyspecs.html
There's nothing at Siple Dome except a small weather station as far as I can tell. Those recon missions to do aerial photos in Marie Byrd land are indeed curious-- from a refuel point of view. I'll keep that in mind going forward here.
ReplyDelete