Antarctica, Scott Base and its environs

© 2005 The New Zealand Geographical Society Inc. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

New Zealand Geographer

(2005)

61

, 68–76

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.

Landscapes

Antarctica, Scott Base and its environs

Landscape


Christine Elliott

Department of Geography, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract:

The landscape in the vicinity of Scott Base is one of the most singular of land-scapes in the already unique environment of the Ross Sea Region of Antarctica. A richhistory of human endeavour together with a broad range of physical features such asvolcanoes, various glacial landforms, polar beaches and the Dry Valleys with their ownglaciers, sand dunes and patterned ground must make it one of the most fascinating areason earth. This paper highlights some of the more notable of these landscape features.

Key words:

airfields, Antarctica, bases, Dry Valleys, glacial environment, huts, polar

beaches, Scott Base.

‘

Among the vast colonies of penguins there’sa small group of kiwis: Scott Base, Antarctica

’(logo on t-shirt from Scott Base shop). ScottBase (77 51

′

S; 166 46

′

E), home to a dozen orso people every winter and up to 90 in sum-mer, is located in one of the most interestingof Antarctic environments. Perched a few metresabove sea-level at Pram Point on Ross Islandit has sea ice, ice shelf, glaciers and volcanoes(active and relic) on its doorstep (Fig. 1). Within100 km there are raised beaches, the Transant-arctic Mountains and the unique environmentof the Dry Valleys with their own glaciers, lakes,patterned ground and desert erg (Fig. 2).

Scientists and base personnel normally getto Scott Base by air from Christchurch andthe first landscape feature they see on leavingthe aircraft is Erebus (it’s rare not to see itas the aeroplanes only fly in good weather). Atnearly 4000 m Mt. Erebus is the centre of a120

°

radial pattern of volcanoes that formRoss Island: Mt Terror and Mt Bird being theEast and NNW arms, respectively. The young-est and only active volcano on Ross Island, a

line of small craters extending in a SSW direc-tion from the flanks of Mt. Erebus, forms theHut Point Peninsula (Figs 1, 2). Castle Rockand Observation Hill are the two most distinc-tive of these craters and, although of a similarage, are quite different in both colour and tex-ture, reflecting their different forms of origin(Fig. 1). Approximately 7 km from Hut Point,Castle Rock extends approximately 140 mabove the surrounding snow covered terrainand is composed of volcanic breccia thatformed from eruptions under contact with iceor water (Dibble 1990; Fig. 3). ObservationHill, on the other hand, with its cross as amonument to Scott’s South Pole party at itssummit, was formed by magma flowing rela-tively gently out of a subaerial vent (Luckman1974; Fig. 1).

Anthropogenic influences

Historic huts

The human history of Ross Island is as inter-esting as its physical environment. Within 50 km

Note about the author: Christine Elliott is a PhD candidate in the Geography Department at the University ofCanterbury. She is also supported by Gateway Antarctica, a Research Centre at the University of Canterbury.

E-mail: [email protected]

© The New Zealand Geographical Society 2005.


69

Figure 1 Map of the Hut Point Peninsula showing location of Scott Base, McMurdo, and the airfields as well asObservation Hill, Erebus and the approximate location of the boundary between ice shelf and sea ice.


70

C. Elliott

of Scott Base are three huts from the ‘heroicera’ of Antarctic exploration: the Discovery,Terra Nova and Nimrod expeditions. Erectedin 1902 for Scott’s 1901–04 British expedition,the 11.3 m

2

‘Discovery’ Hut is within walkingdistance of Scott Base and looks remarkablylike a house from the Australian outback,reflecting its Sydney origins (Fig. 4). Part ofthe design required foundations being sunk1 m into the ground, an enormous challengein the permafrost of Hut Point! Despite havingpromised not to, Shackleton used the hut dur-ing the ‘Nimrod’ Expedition of 1907–09 beforeScott used it again as part of the 1910–13 bidfor the South Pole. Almost immediately after-ward, it became home to the Ross Sea partyfrom Shackleton’s infamous 1914–17 ImperialTransantarctic Expedition. After it was aban-doned, it filled with snow and ice until dug outin 1946/47 during Operation Highjump. It isnow accessible to visitors from Scott Base and

the subject of a major restoration project bythe Antarctic Heritage Trust (AHT 2004).

Bases

Large scale development of the Hut PointPeninsula began with the International Geo-physical Year of 1957/58. The United StatesMcMurdo base at Cape Armitage was the firstto be built in 1955 and now contains a harbour,airstrips, helicopter pads, roads, fire stationand its own small, but well equipped hospital(Fig. 1). Up to 250 people winter at McMurdoand in summer numbers can reach 1000 (Trewby2002). The much smaller Scott Base (maximumof 90 people in summer) was established inJanuary 1957 by Sir Edmund Hillary as part ofthe Commonwealth Trans Antarctic Expeditionof 1955–58. The initial site was to be at ButterPoint on the mainland coast but Pram Pointoffered better access by both sea and air aswell as proximity to the U.S. base, now just an

Figure 2 Map of Ross Island and part of the Victoria Land Coast showing the location of the Dry Valleys.



71

Figure 3 Pram Point with Scott Base, Erebus, Castle Rock and the pressure ridges evident (Photo: Wendy Lawson).

Figure 4 Discovery Hut, Hut Point.


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C. Elliott

approximate 30 minute walk ‘over the hill’(Helm & Miller 1964; Fig. 1). Originally con-sisting of one main building (still remaining) itwas considerably enlarged in 1976 by the additionof a set of eight interlinked pale-green buildings(McGonigal & Woodworth 2002; Fig. 3). It iscurrently undergoing a major building pro-ject to construct a new ‘warm’ store for fieldequipment and food. This additional building,at some 1800 m

2

, will be the largest in the com-plex and, ironically, will mean that food willnow need to be artificially kept frozen!

Airfields

Depending largely on the time of year andtype of aircraft, aeroplanes can land at any oneof three different airfields near Scott Base. Allare built on snow or ice; investigations to builda conventional runway at Marble Point wereattempted in 1957 but abandoned soon after asit was considered to be too far from the baseat McMurdo. Williams (colloquially known asWillies) Field has a ski-way on the permanentice of the Ross Ice Shelf and, nearby, is a run-way for wheeled planes on first year sea ice.The latter is rebuilt in August/September eachyear and operates between October and mid-December when wheeled landings are moved tothe Pegasus field (Trewby 2002; Fig. 1). Pegasus,established experimentally in 1989–90, is locatedat the transition between the sea-ice and theice shelf (Huffman 1983).

In its heyday in 1966–67, up to 250 peoplewere housed at Willies Field and the landingsurfaces were greater than the combinedsize of Washington’s Dulles and Baltimore’sFriendship airports. The field itself has hadto be moved several times over the years toaccommodate calving of the ice shelf and pro-blems associated with snow clearance: initiallysnow was moved into berms at the sides of therunways but, once these had built up to 7 or 8m in height, cracks began to develop in the ice(Huffman 1983).

Human effects on the environment

The increasing level of human presence in therelatively small area of Hut Point has not beenwithout consequences for the environment.

The considerable remodelling of the area toaccommodate bases, airfields and roads hasdamaged the permafrost and resulted in soilshrinkage, slumping and the formation ofsalt efflorescence (Campbell & Claridge 1987).Although confined to a relatively localized area,the bay at McMurdo has estimated levels of con-tamination as high as those found in pollutedharbours elsewhere in the world (Lenihan

et al.

1990 as cited in Hansom & Gordon 1998). Forexample, until 1987 rubbish was simply placedon the sea ice to disappear when it melted. Theburning of fuel for vehicle and aircraft operationsis very visible and continues to pollute theatmosphere.

However, significant efforts to rectify exist-ing, as well as reduce future, anthropogenicimpacts on the environment have been madesince the adoption of the Protocol on Environ-mental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.The Protocol, ratified by all signatories in1998, established environmental obligationsand standards around flora and fauna, wastedisposal and marine pollution. Environmentalimpact assessments are now required priorto any activity, and particularly sensitive areassuch as the Dry Valleys are subject to greaterlevels of protection. New Zealand in particularhas led the way in managing these fragileenvironments with the publication of the Stateof the Environment Report for the Ross SeaRegion (Waterhouse 2001).

Glacial landscapes

Ice shelves

Ice shelves are large thick sheets of floating icethat are attached to land or a grounded icesheet and rise and fall with the tide. They areessentially replenished by ice from land-basedglaciers, although metamorphosed snow andbottom freezing contribute (Swithinbank 1988).Up to 50% of the Antarctic coastline consistsof ice shelves and the Ross Ice Shelf, atapproximately twice the size of New Zealand,is the world’s largest (Keys 1990). Two to sevenhundred metres thick, it moves northwardstowards Ross Island at around 200–1500 m/year (McGonigal & Woodworth 2002) as



73

evidenced by the presence of pressure ridgesoutside Scott Base (Fig. 3). Ablation is due toiceberg calving (for example, the 300 km

×

40 km B-15 which calved in March 2000) andmelting of up to 2.5 m per year from its base(Keys 1990). Unlike the smaller ice shelves ofthe Antarctic Peninsula the Ross Ice Shelf hasbeen advancing over at least the last 150 years(estimated at just under 1 km per year inrecent years) and is deemed to be ‘

consistentwith more or less steady-state conditions

’ (Keys

et al.

1998).

Sea ice

The boundary between the sea ice and theice shelf runs close to Scott Base and it isnormally possible to walk the flagged ‘sea iceroute’, immediately in front of the base (Fig. 3).However, in November 2004 the route wasclosed for safety reasons because of the numberand location of crevasses and cracks in the ice.The presence of sea ice more than doublesthe size of Antarctica each winter and the iceedge advances northwards at an estimated(and incredible) 4 km per day in May and Junewhen freezing is most rapid. Thickened by acombination of snow on its surface and thefreezing of water underneath, it can be 3–4 mthick by mid-winter (Crossley 1995). Antarcticsea ice is much younger and thinner than itsnorthern hemisphere counterpart (mostly lessthan 1 year compared with up to 8 years)(McGonigal & Woodworth 2002).

Glacier tongues

The Victoria Land Coast (Fig. 2) contains anumber of impressive glacier tongues includingthe Drygalski, Erebus, Mackay and Midget.The Midget was named by Frank Debenham,Scott’s geologist on the 1910–13 South Poleexpedition (Debenham 1965). He subsequentlybecame Professor of Geography at CambridgeUniversity. Glacier tongues are essentially formedof ice from a single land glacier that flows overthe sea (Swithinbank 1988). Approximately20 km to the north, the nearest to Scott Baseis the Erebus Ice Tongue which flows from thewest side of Mt. Erebus into McMurdo Sound(Fig. 2).

Fifteen kilometre long and 0.5–2 km widethe tongue has 13.5 km of its length floating. Itvaries in thickness from approximately 50 m atits snout to 300 m at the point where it joinsthe land and grows at about 150 m/year(DeLisle

et al.

1989). It has calved at leastthree times since the early 1900s, the latest in1990 (Squire

et al.

1994). DeLisle

et al.

(1989)postulate that the source of the ice forming thetongue is a 200 m deep trough beneath a glacierclose to where it flows into the Ross Sea andthat this may also be the cause of the crevassesfound on both the surface and margins of theice tongue. Regular triangular lobes found alongthe edges of the tongue are attributed to theshaping of seasonal ice by the corners breakingoff (Debenham 1965).

Valley and cirque glaciers

Numerous valley and cirque glaciers exist inthe vicinity of Scott Base, along the VictoriaLand Coast and particularly in the Dry Valleys(see below). Piedmont glaciers, such as theWilson Piedmont Glacier that forms theseaward extension of the Wright and VictoriaGlaciers, are found all along the coast (Fig. 2).Although much of the Antarctic has beenaffected by glacial activity in the past, the coldbased polar glaciers and the lack of glacio-fluvial activity have reduced this effect in currenttimes (Hansom & Gordon 1998).

The Dry Valleys

There have been a number of glacial and non-glacial hypotheses for the initial formation ofthese unique valleys but Prentice

et al.

(1998)propose that whatever their original means offormation the landscape below 1100 m.a.s.l hasbeen dominated by glacial processes. Approx-imately 80–100 km in length, 5–10 km wide andup to 3 km deep, the valleys are now largelyice-free because the Transantarctic Mountainsform a barrier that prevents much of the flowof the East Antarctic Ice Sheet into McMurdoSound (Chinn 1990; Fig. 2). The Victoria andWright Valleys are estimated to have been icefree in their central regions for approximately4 million years but the Taylor Valley has been


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C. Elliott

invaded many times from the East by the RossIce Shelf (Selby 1990). Dry winds, low precip-itation (approximately 10 mm water equivalentper year at Vanda in the Wright Valley) andsublimation (rather than melting) of the littlesnowfall that does occur help to keep them dry(Chinn 1990).

The three main valleys (Wright, Taylor andVictoria) are characterized by sandy-gravelfloors, exposed rock, ice-covered lakes andvalley glaciers. With the exception of the Taylorand Upper Wright Glaciers, where the EastAntarctic Ice Sheet penetrates, they are smallalpine glaciers with an average area of a fewsquare kilometres. The Dry Valley glaciers arecharacterized by vertical or near vertical icecliffs and surface meltwater from the glaciersprovides the main source of water in thevalleys: an internal drainage system does notdevelop because the low temperature of theice freezes any meltwater that may enter thecrevasses (Fountain

et al.

1998). Although theyhave extremely low accumulation and ablation

rates and move at a rate 1–2 orders of magnitudeslower than temperate glaciers, Chinn (1998)has shown that if the rates of change of frontalposition are related proportionally to their flowand ablation regimes, the Dry Valley glaciersfluctuate just as dynamically as their temperatecounterparts.

At the eastern lower end of the VictoriaValley there is an extensive 10 km stretch ofdesert erg that includes sand sheets, whalebackmantles and a belt of barchan dunes. The sandsheet (1–3 m thick) extends for 2.5 km west-ward from the Victoria Lower Glacier beforechanging into a belt of sand dunes 3.5 km longand 1 km wide (Fig. 5). The dunes themselvesterminate in a field of whaleback mantles eachapproximately 0.5–1 km long. The sand is acombination of material deposited by glaciers,granular disintegration of local gneiss and quartzmonzonite boulders and, perhaps, sandstonefrom the Beacon Supergroup carried into thispart of the valley by the westerlies (Calkin &Rutford 1974). The katabatic westerlies and

Figure 5 Victoria Valley with Barchan Dune and patterned group in the background.



75

predominant summer easterlies (Nylen

et al.

2004) probably move the sand back and forthin the valley but movement of the dunes is veryvariable and snow layers up to 10 cm thickindicate that sand is moved even when theyare snow-covered (Calkin & Rutford 1974).

The Dry Valleys also provide many examplesof patterned ground. In the Victoria Valleythe sand sheet is cut by sand wedge contrac-tion polygons which also exist in the groundmoraine immediately to the west (Calkin &Rutford 1974; Fig. 5). In the moist active layerof the Wright Valley, polygons are found onmoderately low angle slopes and poorly sorted,loose sediment. Three to 10 centimetres in dia-meter they are outlined by intersecting furrowsand trenches with marginal levees (Robinson1982). According to McCraw (1966), other typesof patterned ground are disappointingly sparsein this region but he does describe examples ofsorted circles on a low angle slope betweenCape Royds and Cape Barnes on Ross Island,the presence of sorted nets on the bed of anephemeral stream near Marble Point as well asnonsorted nets and stripes elsewhere.

Coastal landscape

Even though ice-free beaches make up lessthan 10% of the coastline of McMurdo Soundthey are still dominated by ice in a variety ofways (Gregory

et al.

1984). Composed of coarsegrained, angular materials that are moderatelyor poorly sorted, ice-push ridges and ablationfeatures are common. The upper level of thepermafrost limits the depth to which wave pro-cesses can operate and sea ice effectively protectsmost beaches from wave action for all but2 months of the year (Gregory & Kirk 1990).

At least three raised beaches are evident,even to the untrained eye, in the small bayat Marble Point (Fig. 2). These strandlines,unlike their warmer counterparts, are largelyformed of accumulated beach sediments fromthe reworking of

in situ

glacial debris, slopedeposits or bedrock material; streams havelittle if any influence in these environments(Gregory & Kirk 1990). Strandlines are par-ticularly important as they provide time horizons

as well as evidence of changes in prevailingstorm direction in the late Quaternary (Berkman

et al.

1998).

Conclusion

This paper has given a brief description ofsome of the human and physical character-istics of the area around Scott Base. The phys-ical landscape includes volcanoes, all the maintypes of ice features and even desert. Humanpresence is evidenced by the historic huts,bases, airstrips and roads. However, the inter-action between people and the physical en-vironment has not always been a positive oneand it is clear that humans, particularly in theMcMurdo Sound area, have significantly alteredthe local landscape to meet their needs. Therapid increase in anthropogenic activity sincethe International Geophysical Year (1957/58)has had most impact and, whilst on a contin-ental scale, these impacts are small, locally theycan be very significant. Arguments aboundabout whether Antarctica should be opened upto more tourism, mineral extraction or indeedincreased scientific activity and, even thoughsignificant efforts have been made in the lastdecade to rectify or reduce human impact, it isclear that

any

human activity affects this uniqueenvironment in some way.

Acknowledgements

My appreciation to Antarctica New Zealandand the University of Canterbury for theopportunity to undertake my research in sucha magnificent environment.

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Antarctica, Scott Base and its environs

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