Victoria University Antarctic Research Expedition Science and Logistics Reports 1979-80: VUWAE 24
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Background (PJB)
Two of the outstanding problems in Antarctic earth science are the early history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the history of the Transantarctic Mountains, and they may well be linked. The GLOMAR CHALLENGER made the first major breakthrough in 1973 by recovering cores from the centre of the Rose Sea showing that ice rafting began there 25 m.y. ago and has been going on ever since (Hayes et al., 1975), but whether the floating ice came from East or West Antarctica is still debated. The cores contained little information about the history of the Transantarctic Mountains because the holes were too far offshore, and there is unlikely to be much further information from on land, for no dateable sequences from the key time period (50-10 m.y.) are known to crop out on land in the McMurdo Sound region. The glacial history and the uplift of the mountains are likely to be best recorded in the thick sedimentary sequence seen in seismic profiles along the Transantarctic Mountain Front (Northey et al., 1975). This sequence can be sampled only by drilling.
The first attempt to core this sequence (DVDP15) reached 65 m sub-bottom before sea ice conditions terminated drilling (Barrett et al., 1976). The second attempt, which is described here, was much more successful, though drilling was again terminated by sea ice conditions before the target depth was reached. Further background to the drilling can be found in Barrett (1979) and in the Scientific Operations Handbook (Barrett s Waghorn, 1979). Personnel for the operation are listed in Table 1.
Location of Site and Setting up Camp (BAS)
Field operation of the MSSTS programme began with the arrival of an advance party of ten, including one from VUW, at Scott Base on 28 August 1979. Vehicles and equipment were prepared and a series of reconnaissances undertaken by Power wagon and Snotrac (Fig. 2). A flagged route closely following the southern and western boundaries of McMurdo Sound was established from Scott Base to New Harbour. Rough ice prevented an initial attempt to establish a route directly out to the MSSTS 1 site from the dump of DVDP drilling gear at Rig Point on the northern shore of New Harbour. During a Subsequent reconnaissance good travel was found on a route bearing 030 true from Butter Point.
page 5On September 19 a reconnaissance party arrived at a point at 77. 33.3S:164 23.4E. The locality of the site was reached by dead reckoning and the position on the sea ice was fixed by resection using a Kern DkM 1 theodolite. Although 3 km SW of the proposed site (Barrett, 1979) the site was logistically preferable, being nearer land, and scientifically acceptable, being within the region previously surveyed by seismic refraction methods (McGinnis 1979) and known to have at least 500 m of sediment overlying basement.
Sea ice thickness at the adopted site, 1.98 m, was more than sufficient for drilling operations; water depth was 196 m and not varying from this by more than ±10 m at points 50C m north, south, east and west. The site was 80 km by sea ice road from Scott Base and 26 km from Rig Point.
Two huts were established at the site and an attempt was made to flood the area with sea water to strengthen the sea ice platform. The attempt failed as the pumps froze - the air temperature was −35° C. In the following weeks equipment and fuel were brought to the site by D4 sledge trains from Scott Base, McMurdo Station and Rig Point. By October 10 the camp, consisting of two oil-heated Jamesways and six insulated plywood huts, was fully operational and most of the drilling gear was on site. The main party of drillers arrived on October 12 and the erection of the rig began immediately. Casing was lowered to the sea floor on October 20 and drilling began on October 21.
Figure 2. Map of McMurdo Sound, showing the location of MSSTS 1 and DVDP 15 and supply routes to MSSTS 1.
Drillsite Crew | ||
Drilling supervisor | Jack Barclay | MOWD |
Drilling Supervisor | Jim Gupwell | MOWD |
Driller | Guy Holmes | MOWD |
Driller | Terry Quigley | MOWD |
Driller | Neville Quigley | MOWD |
Driller | Richard Stacey | MOWD |
Driller | Gerald Haugh | MOWD |
Driller | John Marcuson | MOWD |
Driller | David Rees | Ant. Div. |
Driller | Vaughn Robson | MOWD |
Driller | John Star | MOWD |
Drillers assistant | Tony McPherson | VUW |
Drillers assistant | Paul White | VUW |
Drillers assistant | Frank Williams | VUW |
Logistics Manager | Garth Varcoe | Ant. Div. |
Cook | Warwick Bull | Ant. Div. |
Ass. Maintenance Officer | Ray Matheson | Ant. Div. |
Field assistant | Roy Arbon | Ant. Div. |
Drillsite scientist | ||
Science Manager | Bryan Sissons | VUW |
Geophysicist | Paul Froggatt | VUW |
Core grabber | Alex pyne | VUW |
Core grabber | Ian Wright | VUW |
Geophysicist | Dr Heinz Miller | FGR |
Core Lab. Scott Base | ||
Site Geologist | MSSTS Pt 1 Dr Peter Barrett | VUW |
Site Geologist | MSSTS Pt 2 Dr Barry McKelvey | UNE |
Core Manager | David waghorn | VUW |
Geological Asst. | Barry walker | VUW |
Photographer | Alan Ross | VUW |
Geochemist | Dr Tetsuya Torii | JARE |
Geochemist | Dr Kazuhisa Komura | JARE |
Geochemist | Dr Shyu Nakaya | JARE |
Geologist | Dr Yuki Yusa | JARE |
Geologist | Dr Don Elston | USGS |
Geologist | Steve Bressler | USGS |
Paleontologist | Barbara Ward | VUW/NIU |
Paleontologist | Mark Leckie | NIU |
Paleontologist | Howard Brady | MU |
Note | ||
VUW | Victoria University of Wellington | |
NIU | Northern Illinois University | |
USGS | United States Geological Survey | |
UNE | University of New England | |
FRG | Federal Republic of Germany | |
JARE | Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition | |
MU | MacQuarie University | |
MOWD | Ministry of Works and Development | |
Ant. Div. | Antarctic Division DSIR, N.Z. |