Breaking The Ice
victoria-university-of-wellington
Fri Jun 29 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Breaking The Ice
Friday, 29 June 2007, 10:36 am
Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington
Breaking The Ice
This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expeditions (VUWAE), and members of these expeditions will reunite to share stories of their time on the ice.
The expeditions began on December 30, 1957, when two third-year geology students stepped off the H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour equipped with WWII field gear to keep them warm, and hitched a helicopter ride with biologist Ron Balham to the eerie and unexplored McMurdo Dry Valleys.
Their mapping and reporting from that season formed the basis for the annual Victoria University Antarctic Expeditions (VUWAE) that continue to this day. Those two pioneering students - Peter Webb and Barrie McKelvey - will share their reminiscences at a dinner at Victoria University on Saturday night, and will be answered by members of the most recent expedition, VUWAE 51.
Members from almost every expedition have registered, and the weekend also includes slide presentations, sharing of stories from the ice, and presentations of current research.
Since the historic first expedition VUWAEs have taken more than 250 staff and students to the ice, to share the excitement and satisfaction of discovering and understanding a remarkable part of the planet. Â Â These days, undergraduate students are also introduced to the Ice in a Victoria University course called "Unfreezing Antarctica", which draws on the Antarctic experience of staff but also includes guest lectures on topics including early exploration, climate change, art, tourism and environmental management.
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Over the years, the nature of exploration has changed as the region has become increasingly well known, but the style and spirit remain - a small group of innovative thinkers tackling some aspect of a big problem. These days much of the exploration involves sampling otherwise inaccessible records by coring, on ice, on land and offshore. Victoria University is closely involved in the international ANDRILL project, which seeks to obtain more detail on past Antarctic climate from drill cores in the McMurdo region. The project represents a major technological challenge, with one of the sites in water deeper than 800m, and the other sites on floating ice approximately 100m thick.
Lead organiser of this weekend's reunion is Professor Peter Barrett, Director of the University's Antarctic Research Centre and winner last year of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research's President's Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Antarctic Science.
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