Macquarie Island Station | |
---|---|
Subantarctic base | |
Nickname: Macca | |
Location of Macquarie Island Station, relative to Australia and New Zealand | |
Coordinates: 54°29′56″S158°56′20″E / 54.498889°S 158.938889°E | |
Country | Australia |
State | Tasmania |
LGA | Huon Valley Council |
Administered by | Australian Antarctic Division |
Established | 1911 |
Named for | Lachlan Macquarie |
Population | |
• Summer | 40 |
• Winter | 16 |
Time zone | UTC+10:00 (AEST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC+11:00 (AEDT) |
UN/LOCODE | AU MQI |
Active times | All year-round |
Status | Operational |
Activities | List
|
Facilities [1] | List
|
Website | antarctica.gov.au |
The Macquarie Island Station, commonly called Macca, [2] is a permanent Australian subantarctic research base on Macquarie Island, situated in the Southern Ocean and located approximately halfway between Mainland Australia and Antarctica, managed by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). The station lies at the base of Wireless Hill, between two bays on the isthmus at the northern end of the island.
The island and its surrounding waters are administered as a nature reserve by the Tasmania Parks & Wildlife Service. In 1997, the island was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as a site of major geoconservation significance, being the only place on Earth where rocks from the Earth's mantle are actively exposed above sea-level. [2] [3]
The research station is operated by the Australian Antarctic Division. Scientific research on the island is focused around biology, geosciences, meteorology, and human impact on the environment. Macquarie island birds breed on the island so wildlife management and counting is key to a number of research projects. Monitoring is also undertaken for the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency to detect radioactive debris from atmospheric explosions or vented by underground or underwater nuclear explosions. Macquarie Island is an important global monitoring location for scientific research, including monitoring southern hemisphere climatic data by Geoscience Australia. [4]
Various buildings exist, some dating back to the early 1950s: Sleeping quarters are in Southern Aurora Dongas (SAD), Garden Cove (Dorm), Hasselborough House and Cumpston's Cottage. A combined mess and kitchen adjoin the doctor's surgery. Storage exists in the main store shed and a large field store shed. The various trades there have their own workshops. A main and standby powerhouse provide electricity and reticulated heating water via a heat exchanger on the diesel generators. Water is sourced from a dam at the top of Gadget's Gully and piped to storage tanks at the station. Sewage is treated before discharge and garbage is sorted for recycling (back in Hobart) or incineration on site. Scientific facilities exist in the Biology Building, Physics Building and Bureau of Meteorology buildings. Various outbuildings support instrumentation such as ionosondes, seismometers and upper atmospheric experiments. A tide gauge is installed in Garden Cove. [1]
The radiocommunications station has callsign "VJM" and conducts a nightly HF radio schedule with the field huts on 3023 kHz (time varies depending on season and staff preferences). Communications with Australia are conducted using the ANARESAT Earth station facility which utilises the Intelsat Pacific Ocean satellite. Inmarsat and Iridium Communications portable units are used as a backup. A network of VHF radio repeaters is utilised with handheld transceivers by bushwalkers on the island. The base has an Internet Protocol network for local PC and VoIP equipment.
The station was opened in 1911 by Douglas Mawson as his party established a base to relay radio messages from Antarctica to Hobart, Tasmania. [5] From 1948 the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions used the base for scientific purposes. [5] Permanent Daylight-Saving Time was established for stationed personal in 1948, which was later changed to Summer DST in April 2024 with the addition of a permanent human population on Macquarie Island.
The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall land area is 372 km2 (144 sq mi) and it has 101.9 km (63 mi) of coastline. Discovered in the mid-19th century, the islands lie on the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean and have been an Australian territory since 1947.
Hobart is the capital and most populous city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Located in Tasmania's south-east on the estuary of the River Derwent, it is the southernmost capital city in Australia. Despite containing nearly half of Tasmania's population, Hobart is the least-populated Australian state capital city, and second-smallest by population and area after Darwin if territories are taken into account. Its skyline is dominated by the 1,271-metre (4,170 ft) kunanyi / Mount Wellington, and its harbour forms the second-deepest natural port in the world, with much of the city's waterfront consisting of reclaimed land. The metropolitan area is often referred to as Greater Hobart, to differentiate it from the City of Hobart, one of the seven local government areas that cover the city. It has a mild maritime climate.
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Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island in the south-western Pacific Ocean, about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. It has been governed as a part of Tasmania, Australia since 1880. It became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978 and was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.
Macquarie Harbour is a shallow fjord in the West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia. It is approximately 315 square kilometres (122 sq mi), and has an average depth of 15 metres (49 ft), with deeper places up to 50 metres (160 ft). It is navigable by shallow-draft vessels. The main channel is kept clear by the presence of a rock wall on the outside of the channel's curve. This man-made wall prevents erosion and keeps the channel deep and narrow, rather than allowing the channel to become wide and shallow. A reported Aboriginal name for the harbour is Parralaongatek.
The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions is the historical name for the Australian Antarctic Program (AAP) administered for Australia by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
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Wireless Hill is a steep-sided hill with a summit plateau that takes up most of the North Head promontory at the northern end of Australia’s subantarctic Macquarie Island, lying in the Southern Ocean about halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Its highest point is about 100 m above sea level and it is joined to the main body of the island by a low and narrow isthmus that is occasionally wave-washed in heavy storms. Macquarie Island Station, operated by the Australian Antarctic Division and the only permanently populated place on the island, lies at the northern end of the isthmus at the foot of Wireless Hill. The hill is so named because it was the site of an early wireless telegraphy relay station, part of the first radio link to Antarctica.
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