Management of Science in the Ross Dependency

Granite Harbour continues to be an area of interest for polar marine glacial study because it can be logistically supported from McMurdo-Scott Base, yet is sufficiently far away from McMurdo Sound to be a good model for the deep basins along the Ross Sea coast that have been influenced by plateau ice. We suggest that a small summer science base could be established at Cape Roberts to support marine glacial, oceanographic and biological studies in Granite Harbour and this area of the Ross Sea coast. Such a summer base could also be the nucleus of a drilling camp if further offshore drilling were to go ahead near Cape Roberts.

This season we were joined by Lt Fernando Zurita, a guest scientist (geologist) from Ecuador, whose scientific interest was close to our oceanographic studies. He was only able to spend a short time with us in the field before leaving to organise the Ecuador Antarctic Oceanic Cruise beginning in early December. I think Lt Zurita's visit to Scott Base and involvement in our programme was successful because of our compatible scientific interests, but unfortunately his time with us in the field was rather short, and he was not able to observe the full range of our operations.