The Vostok traverse was a 3000 kilometre four-month trip across Antarctica undertaken by ANARE the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition in 1962. Using two bright red painted 1943 World War II M29 Weasel tracked vehicles and two 1950 D4 Caterpillar Inc. tractors the 6-man expedition left Wilkes Base on the coast for the Russian Vostok Station deep in the Antarctic interior. Much of the journey was over previously unexplored territory. The Weasels achieved 2 miles to the gallon and the tractors one mile per gallon, so a fuel dump was requested from the American McMurdo Station.
Navigating across the featureless landscape was accomplished by a lead Weasel fitted with a Pioneer compass suspended in front of the vehicle on an aluminium frame. This was done to prevent the steel of the vehicle swamping the weak natural magnetic field close to the pole. The lead Weasel had two oblique mirrors, one in front of the driver facing upwards and the other positioned above the first and facing downwards and backwards. By keeping a bead on the following vehicles and the bamboo guide posts left at two and a half mile intervals, it was found the vehicles could keep a very straight path.
When they arrived they found the Russians had evacuated the station 12 months beforehand in such haste that food had been left half cooked on the stove. The generators were started up and the snap-frozen steaks were finished and eaten by the team. The trip ranks as one of Australia's most historic traverses. [1]
Transport in Antarctica has transformed from explorers crossing the isolated remote area of Antarctica by foot to a more open era due to human technologies enabling more convenient and faster transport, predominantly by air and water, but also by land as well. Transportation technologies on a remote area like Antarctica need to be able to deal with extremely low temperatures and continuous winds to ensure the travelers' safety. Due to the fragility of the Antarctic environment, only a limited amount of transport movements can take place and sustainable transportation technologies have to be used to reduce the ecological footprint. The infrastructure of land, water and air transport needs to be safe and sustainable. Currently thousands of tourists and hundreds of scientists a year depend on the Antarctic transportation system.
Lake Vostok is the largest of Antarctica's almost 400 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at 3,488 m (11,444 ft) above mean sea level. The surface of this fresh water lake is approximately 4,000 m (13,100 ft) under the surface of the ice, which places it at approximately 500 m (1,600 ft) below sea level.
Vostok refers to east in Russian but may also refer to:
McMurdo Station is a United States Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand–claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting up to 1,258 residents, and serves as one of three year-round United States Antarctic science facilities. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo. By road, McMurdo is 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from New Zealand's smaller Scott Base.
Vostok Station is a Russian research station in inland Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica. Founded by the Soviet Union in 1957, the station lies at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of −89.2 °C. Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry. Vostok was named after Vostok, the lead ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition captained by Fabian von Bellingshausen. The Bellingshausen Station was named after this captain.
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).
The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South Pole overland for 46 years, preceded only by Amundsen's expedition and Scott's expedition in 1911 and 1912.
The Traversay Islands are a group of three islands—Zavodovski, Leskov and Visokoi—at the northern end of the South Sandwich Islands.
The M29 Weasel was a World War II tracked vehicle designed for operation in snow. Built by Studebaker, Weasels were also used in sandy, muddy, and desert terrains, including towing loads over terrain wheeled vehicles could not negotiate as in the US Marine invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
The Third Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1957–59) was led by Yevgeny Tolstikov on the continent and included Czech future astronomer Antonín Mrkos; the marine expedition on the Ob was led by I V Maksimov.
The Pole of Inaccessibility research station is a defunct Soviet research station in Kemp Land, Antarctica, at the southern pole of inaccessibility as defined in 1958 when the station was established. Later definitions give other locations, all relatively near this point. It performed meteorological observations from 14 to 26 December 1958. The Pole of Inaccessibility has the world's coldest year-round average temperature of −58.2 °C (−72.8 °F).
The South Pole Traverse, also called the South Pole Overland Traverse, is an approximately 995-mile-long (1,601 km) flagged route over compacted snow and ice in Antarctica that links McMurdo Station on the coast to the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, both operated by the National Science Foundation of the United States. It was constructed by levelling snow and filling in crevasses; flags mark its route from McMurdo Station across the Ross Ice Shelf to the Leverett Glacier, where the route ascends to the polar plateau and on to the South Pole.
Wilkes Station was an Antarctic research station established 29 January 1957 by the United States as one of seven U.S. stations established for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) program in Antarctica. It was taken over by Australia on 7 February 1959.
The air-tractor sledge was a converted fixed-wing aircraft taken on the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, the first plane to be taken to the Antarctic.
Andrey Petrovich Kapitsa was a Russian geographer and Antarctic explorer, discoverer of Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica. He was a member of the Kapitsa family, a scientific dynasty in Russia.
Kharkovchanka, code name: Manufacture 404S, is a model of Antarctic off-road vehicle made circa 1957–1958 in the Soviet Union, designed and built by the Kharkov Transport Engineering Plant, and later manufactured by the Malyshev Factory. Based on the AT-T tractor platform. In December 1959 two of them were delivered to Antarctica and reached the South Pole. The massive off-road snow vehicle had a small galley, toilet, oven, and eight beds.
Vostok was a 28-gun sloop-of-war of the Imperial Russian Navy, the lead ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1819–1821, during which Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev circumnavigated the globe, discovered the continent of Antarctica and twice circumnavigated it, and discovered a number of islands and archipelagos in the Southern Ocean and the Pacific.
Mirny was a 20-gun sloop-of-war of the Imperial Russian Navy, the second ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition in 1819–1821, during which Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev circumnavigated the globe, discovered the continent of Antarctica and twice circumnavigated it, and discovered a number of islands and archipelagos in the Southern Ocean and the Pacific.
Firefighting in Antarctica encompasses various organizations and procedures designed to fight fires on the continent of Antarctica. Firefighting in Antarctica is complicated by the harsh conditions of the continent, the remoteness of the locations to be serviced, and the importance of protecting life-supporting shelter from immolation.