Antarctic video gallery
Underwater cameras light the way for Southern Ocean conservation
Underwater cameras light the way for Southern Ocean conservation
Video transcript
Tim Lamb:
All around the Antarctic there are areas known as vulnerable marine ecosystems, and we're trying to find them, so that the fishing industry can avoid fishing on them.
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First sea-ice landing near Italian station for Australia's Antarctic Airbus
Grand Designs: Macca
Grand Designs: Macca
Video transcript
Adrian Young - Project Manager
We’ve selected a site just to the south of the existing station and it’s on ground outside of the storm surge area that we currently experience. But it’s also on good ground that’s away from known nesting site, from any of the elephant seals and penguins in the area.
Travis Thom - Strategic Infrastructure Project Lead
The reason we’ve had to make a virtual tour is that it’s really difficult to get to Macquarie Island. There’s only really one ship that goes down each year to do an annual resupply. There’s also fantastic opportunities to really get a sense of some of the science that’s carried out on the island, whether it be going inside one of the science laboratories or getting an insight into the radionuclide station.
The current station is made up of 48 buildings that are scattered across the isthmus. What we’re proposing for the new station is to reduce the number of buildings down to between 15 and 20.
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Virtual Space Station
Virtual Space Station
Video transcript
[music]
Dr JEFF AYTON – CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, AAD: A mission to Mars is analogous to an Antarctic mission. Australia's Antarctic stations are isolated and confined and they're an extreme environment. We are isolated for up to nine months of the year, so that is about the longest that people are isolated in a real-life situation on Earth. There's not a whole lot of evidence around how to deal with teams in Antarctica or in other extreme environments.
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PROF. JAY C. BUCKEY Jnr – PHYSICIAN, ASTRONAUT, GEISEL SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCHOOL AT DARTMOUTH: And what VR allows you to do is to immerse people in different natural settings, so they can be in the Bavarian Alps, or they can be on a beach in Australia, and there's evidence that exposure to nature which we all like and seek out, can be restorative and that it can help people to relieve stress, it can also help perhaps improve people's attention and mental functioning.
NATE PAYNE, MECHANIC, MAWSON STATION: Best bit about the virtual reality experience is the 360 effect. I play a lot of games on my xbox and the VR is very different because you're interactive with it, you get to look around.
PROF. JAY C. BUCKEY Jnr – PHYSICIAN, ASTRONAUT, GEISEL SCHOOL OF MEDICAL SCHOOL AT DARTMOUTH: There aren't that many people who live in challenging, isolated, and confined environments like this, so the information we get from them is so valuable because it tells us about how people in this kind of environment would use a tool like this.
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Fire and ice
Fire and ice
Video transcript
Adam Doran - Tasmania Fire ServiceIt’s a secondary job for them down there. So we’ve got cooks, plumbers and fridge mechanics and we are trying to mould them all into a firefighting unit.
Chris MacMillian – Casey Station Leader
We’ve been going through the basics of firefighting, including emergency response with an extinguisher, also handling of hoses, also BA, breathing apparatus training, and also team work and going in to fight a fire.
Adam Doran - Tasmania Fire Service
Some of the conditions they face are at an extreme level. So relative humidity is a big one for them. It sits at nearly around zero percent. So to put that in our terms if we have humidity at that level here in Tasmania, we are facing catastrophic conditions and that’s their normal.
Chris MacMillian – Casey Station Leader
Water is a particular challenge in the Antarctic. We only have limited supply, and that is for all uses of water, so the firefighting water is limited. Then you have the freezing conditions that also may affect your ability to use the water effectively. We’re only dependent on ourselves for up to six months of the year. We really have to know each other, work well together, communicate well and rely on each other.
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Icebreaker floating
Icebreaker floating
Video transcript
Nick Browne: For me personally and professionally it's a very exciting point in time and also for the Australian Antarctic Division project team.
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Casey Airdrop
Casey Airdrop
Video transcript
Robb Clifton - Operations Manager
So yesterday we used a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster to do an airdrop of needed parts into Casey station which will assist us get the runway at Wilkins, which is about 70 kilometres from Casey, open to start the summer season.
The parts that we've dropped in are to repair a snow blower and this snow blower is needed to clear the runway in order to land the first flight.
The airdrop capability is a fantastic capability for the Australian Antarctic Program. It means we can get cargo and much-needed materials into our stations without going through the effort of preparing a full runway for an airplane to land on, so for us it's a real game-changer.
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Expeditioner training
Expeditioner training
Video transcript
>> LUKE – EXPEDITIONER: I'm Luke.
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Exploring the deep field
Exploring the deep field
Video transcript
Anthony Hull: Having a traverse or ground-based capability allows us to move inland in all weather conditions and allows us to access areas that we can't traditionally access by aircraft.
Dr Tas van Ommen: It opens up the interior for a number of scientific projects, and the million year ice core is the first of these projects that we will be using that traverse capability for. You can typically drill - if you have a good season - several hundred meters in a season, maybe a thousand meters, and so we expect the millionaire core to be three thousand meters long and take at least three, perhaps four, summer seasons of drilling.
Many of the components are specialist designs that have to be constructed and built in-house and we've got the right team to do that.
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The Antarctica Experience trailer
The Antarctica Experience trailer
Video transcript
Robb Clifton – Davis Station Leader and Australian Antarctic Division Operations Manager
Welcome to Davis station. We are here on the shores of East Antarctica and it’s really great to have you here, in my office.
Dr Louise Emmerson – Australian Antarctic Division Seabird Ecologist
Here we are out at Magnetic Island. At the moment we just have to be a bit quiet because there are penguins coming past.
Dr Sarah Thompson – Glaciologist and Geophysicist
If we look around us, we can see melt ponds forming on the surface. The ice flows down into the ocean where it starts to break up and form icebergs.
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