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Mawson
last update: Nov 02, 2010 02:48 PM
History: Opened February 1954
Location: South-eastern shore of Horseshoe Harbour, MacRobertson Land, at the edge of the Antarctic plateau – (67°36'S 62°52’E)
Notes:
On 13 February 1954, a party led by Law raised the Australian flag on the rocky shore of Horseshoe Harbour, naming the new station in honour of Australia's greatest polar explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson. In the first year a party of 10 Australians spent winter in cramped but adequate accommodation under the leadership of Robert Dovers. By the end of 1954 they had erected the Living Quarters, the Works Hut, the Engine Shed, two Store Huts and a Carpenter's Shop.
By 1966 the number of buildings had increased to more than 50. The station had become the base for exploration of the coast east to the Amery Ice Shelf and west into Enderby Land, for major traverses of the Antarctic hinterland, and for aerial reconnaissance of the interior, including the Lambert Glacier and the Prince Charles Mountains. A major development in the station's early years was the construction in 1956 of the first aircraft hangar to be built in Antarctica. Antarctica's premier cosmic ray observatory was carved out of the solid rocks on which the station is built.
Today's Mawson station consists of an accumulation of buildings dating from its origins (many of which have been superseded) to the currently occupied AANBUS buildings erected in a major redevelopment during the 1980s and early 1990s. Mawson is now one of the longest continuously operating stations in Antarctica and the oldest south of the Antarctic Circle.
It is Australia's first continental station and the longest continuously operating station south of the Antarctic Circle. The station is the most westerly of the three continental stations, lying about 5,200km south-west of Perth, Western Australia. It is situated on the south-eastern shore of Horseshoe Harbour, a small ice-free rock outcrop some 900 by 700m in size adjacent to the continental ice cap in Holme Bay, MacRobertson Land.
The Mawson region is one of the richest areas for seabirds in the Australian Antarctic Territory, and supports breeding colonies of emperor and Adelie penguins, snow petrels, Antarctic petrels (the largest colony in Antarctica with 158,000 breeding pairs), Wilson's storm petrels, cape petrels, southern giant petrels, Antarctic fulmars and skuas.
Station is used year round.
Science programmes carried out:
- Geosciences
- Human Impacts
- Medical
- Space & Atmospheric Science
- AMLR: Antarctic Marine Living Resources
- Adelie penguin program
Area and buildings:
There are 35 buildings at Mawson Station
Interesting Trivia:
Weather Conditions: Prolonged periods of strong and gale force winds occur, averaging 50 knots, and sometimes wind gusts reach 130-140 knots. Temperatures : 5C°C maximum temperature, -36C°C minimum temperature
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