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Victoria University Antarctic Research Expedition Science and Logistics Reports 1998-99: VUWAE 43

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

1. The Project operated in the Cape Roberts (CR) area from early September 1998 to the end of January 1999. This period can be divided into four distinct phases:
a.Set-up - September; during which the support team of eight deployed the main CR Camp and DS Camp onto the sea ice in preparation for drilling. The main activity during this period was hauling all buildings, equipment and fuel off CR and setting up the two camps. The team arrived at CR by Hagglunds all-terrain vehicles and lived on CR for eight nights until the main Camp was assembled and habitable. Later in the month they began deploying buildings and equipment to the Drill Site after a safe route was surveyed. This is a phase of the Project where environmental 'incidents' can easily occur because of the extreme cold temperatures adversely affecting both machinery and people. The period was incident free.
b.Drilling Operations - October and November; during which drilling and core recovery was undertaken and up to 46 people - support staff, drillers, scientists and visitors - were at CR. High levels of activity and occupancy sum up this phase. Drilling was a two-shift around-the-clock operation and, weather permitting, shift changes were done by helicopter. There was also a significant amount of travel done over sea ice, moving people and supplies between CR, the Main Camp and the Drill Site. Two sledge train trips were made to Marble Point to obtain more fuel. During this phase, mainly in November, some 100 people visited the Project.
c.Decommission - early December; during which a support team of seven returned all equipment and buildings to CR for storage. Drillers and scientists returned to Scott Base soon after drilling finished leaving the support team to decommission the Main Camp and store all buildings, sledges and fuel on CR. This was an eight day operation. The support team returned to Scott Base by Hagglunds vehicles.
e.Maintenance and Winterisation - January; during which a support team of four carried out essential equipment maintenance and winterisation of all plant and buildings on CR. Environmental monitoring and sampling was done during this period.

2. Unlike the previous season, this season for CRP went very much to plan - the key to this was thick stable sea ice. The set-up phase went very smoothly and efficiently. The drilling got off to a slow start mainly because of the difficult nature of the strata, but at completion a depth of 625 metres below-sea-floor was reached with a very high percentage of core recovered.

3. From an environmental perspective the CRP 'season' was also highly successful. There are no 'environmental incidents' to report. Once again all people involved in the Project demonstrated a high level of environmental awareness and responsibility. This was confirmed by the independent environmental review carried out in early November by the Environmental Manager for the Australian Antarctic Programme. As in previous years, Antarctica New Zealand's Environmental Manager also made working visits to the Project as part of ongoing environmental monitoring.