Antarctic video gallery

Master plan for Davis research station

Find out more: Modernisation planning begins for Australia’s Antarctic stations

Master plan for Davis research station

Video transcript

Last year, the Australian Government committed $450m to upgrade Australia’s network o Antarctic research stations.

Work has started on a master plan for Davis research station.

Kim Ellis, Director, Australian Antarctic Division: The opportunity to redevelop these stations, to create something really sustainable and absolutely support the very best of scientific research that allow us to collaborate and engage with agencies here in Australia and internationally – and it’s unprecedented and a terrific opportunity for us to get this right.

What will Davis station look like in 2050?

Kim Ellis: The Davis station of the future brings together that strong expedition history, so that engagement, understanding of Antarctica, protection of the environment, and it takes it to another level.

It makes the station sustainable, reduces our dependence on carbon fuels, it reduces our footprint in Antarctica, in improves our waste disposal, our energy utilisation and our living conditions.

It brings better laboratories that allows our scientists from inside the Australian Antarctic Division, from across the Program and internationally, to undertake research that we’ve never undertaken before.

It integrates remote sensing and remote vehicles to allow us to reach well beyond the area we’ve currently been able to engage.

And it brings safety and living conditions that we haven’t had before.

That focus on the human occupation – encouraging and enabling diversity in the people who work for us, and ensuring they are safe and happy – both physically and psychology in the station.

Master plans will also be developed for Casey and Mawson research stations.

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Timelapse of mammatus cloud event from all-sky camera

Find out more: 'Mammatus' cloud show captured by lucky scientists

Incoming Casey Station Leader Kyle Williams is looking forward to the challenge

Find out more: "A year like no other": new Station Leader heads south

Incoming Casey Station Leader Kyle Williams is looking forward to the challenge

Video transcript

Antarctic Station Leaders - Season 2020-21

Kyle Williams - Casey research station

"Antarctica in my opinion is the most beautiful yet challenging workplace on the planet. It has everything you have in Australia bar none, and at the same time it has these amazing landscapes and wildlife and an unbelievable environment that is simply unmatched so for most people that go that is probably one of the highlights of their experience.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic this will be an Antarctic season unlike any other.

So for our expeditioners this season it’s going to be quite different for them. So some of the things we’ve included in that is a two-week period of quarantine prior to them heading south, there’ll be COVID testing for all of our expeditioners and then upon arrival on station all of our expeditioners will take another period of enhanced social distancing and that will include COVID-19 testing.

Casey is traditionally the busiest of our Antarctic stations and that’s due to the air link with Wilkins. This season it’ll be a little bit different across the program so none of the other stations aside from Casey will have a summer program. And at Casey we won’t be conducting the traditional intra-continental sites between Casey and Davis and Mawson. In saying that though Casey will still have a summer program so it will be quite busy for us.

People that go to Antarctica, that head south, have a very adventurous spirit and two of the very key qualities personally for all of those that I’ve seen is resilience and adaptability, and that’s what you need in spades when you go to Antarctica. Things always change, there’s always a different challenge, particularly given the current state of the world, so whilst it will be a challenge in a COVID world new normal, I think everyone will be up to the challenge and will have a really good season."

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Waking up Wilkins Aerodrome for the first flights of the Antarctic season

Find out more: “Herculean task”: waking up Wilkins Aerodrome

Waking up Wilkins Aerodrome for the first flights of the Antarctic season

Video transcript

For a plucky band of specialist expeditioners, it’s almost the end of their Antarctic adventure.

MATT RYAN: "Antarctica is a very harsh continent… it’s certainly not for everyone. (thumbs up, BBQ roast shot)

70 kilometres inland from Casey research station, Australia’s Wilkins Aerodrome is ready for summer.

MR: "Hi I’m Matt Ryan. I’m the 2020 Wilkins Aerodrome Manager."

For the last few months, the small Aerodrome team has been waking Wilkins up from winter.

One piece at a time in the most challenging of circumstances.

(SOUNDUP – “alright we’ll miss you”)

MR: "Been a busy and challenging start-up this year, with plenty of blizzards and inclement weather to keep us occupied."

CHARLTON CLARK, General Manager of Operations and Safety: "At the start of each season we have a small team in Antarctica that have to undertake a Herculean task of clearing three kilometres of an ice runway in temperatures down to minus 25, winds of up to 200 kilometres an hour, that batter the team for months on end."

But persistence pays off.

And bit by bit, the Wilkins team has reclaimed the runway from the glacier’s surface.

MR: "We’ve got to clear the snow off the runway surface, proof-roll, survey, mark out. Not a small task, living and working in a remote field camp."

(SOUNDUP proof-rolling at dawn)

The blue ice runway needs to be strong enough to land an Airbus A319 or a RAAF cargo plane.

Over the last few weeks the surface has been finessed and fine-tuned.

Now, after months of hard work, it’s all set for landing.

MR: "My team’s done a fantastic job, my guys have all looked out for one another and looked after one another. Looking forward to seeing an aircraft on the ground shortly."

Runway-ready for another busy Antarctic season ahead.

(CREDITS)

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Medevac Training

Find out more: Isolation chamber ready for COVID-19 defence

Medevac Training

Video transcript

The Australian Antarctic Program is always ready to respond to medical emergencies.

Dr Roland Watzl, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Australian Antarctic Division
Prior to every first flight we get together with a team of specialists from the Royal Hobart Hospital and the Tasmanian Ambulance Retrieval Service to train on the equipment.

This year’s Antarctic season has challenges unlike any other.

Dr John Cherry, 2021 Davis research station doctor
In a COVID world we have to prepare for the reality that that virus is now part of our lives. We have to prepare for the fact that we’re operating in an extreme environment, we’re in an isolated environment, we’ve got a one doctor at each station model, there’s a nine month period where there’s no hope of medical evacuation.

Dr Roland Watzl, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Australian Antarctic Division
As best as we know, there’s no COVID-19 in Antarctica at this time and certainly the big mission is to keep it out of Antarctica, but yes, we always plan for the worst and hope for the best.

The team is training to evacuate a patient from Antarctica to Australia.

Dr Roland Watzl, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Australian Antarctic Division
Really we’re putting very, very strong measures in place to actually do everything possible to prevent our teams from getting infected, should we have to deal with a case.

For the first time, this portable isolation chamber and intensive care module will be available on the plane, ship, and at stations.

It’s specially designed to safely transport a COVID patient in different vehicles without infecting others.

Dr John Cherry, 2021 Davis research station doctor
The equipment that we’ve got here today is pretty world leading, to be honest with you, so very few health services or retrieval services in the world would have access to the technology that we’ve got, and I think that’s testament to the work that’s been put in through the Polar Medicine Unit.

The chamber’s exhaust air is filtered to protect the medical team during the flight.

Dr Trudi Disney, Staff Specialist Anaesthetist, Royal Hobart Hospital
It was okay, actually. I thought it would feel more claustrophobic than it did, and I thought the air would start to feel a bit close, and you’re not really aware of any breeze but the air feels fresh. And I think it being clear, I didn’t feel claustrophobic at all.

Dr John Cherry, 2021 Davis research station doctor
From our training today, we’ve demonstrated that we have the technology and the capabilities to handle a COVID-19 case in Antarctica. We obviously hope that doesn’t happen, but we’re definitely prepared for it if it does.

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Proof of Life

Find out more: Capturing marine biodiversity with the power of genetics

Proof of Life

Video transcript

How do we identify all the tiny organisms that live in the vast Southern Ocean?

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
The open ocean is quite different to other environments because the water body is just so big, so it all dilutes quite quickly, there are currents and other factors.

The Continuous Plankton Recorder has been used for the last century. It’s towed behind a ship at a constant speed for 450 nautical miles at a time, trapping plankton between sheets of silk, to be laboriously identified and counted in the lab.

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
With traditional methods you actually need a real expert that can identify under the microscope what they're seeing.

But could new genetic techniques make this research easier and more effective?

DNA is like a chemical barcode unique to every species.

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
Environmental DNA is pretty much the DNA that is shed by any organism into the environment, so in the marine environment imagine a fish shedding a scale, or doing a poo, or spawning or dying and slowly decaying. And with genetic methods we can extract this DNA from quite small water samples and from that determine what actually lives in the environment.

Our scientists put the two methods – the old and the new – to the test in the Southern Ocean.

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
We just wanted to see if the eDNA can actually capture the same information as this Continuous Plankton Recorder.

Two litres of clean ocean water piped straight into a lab on the Aurora Australis was sequenced for eDNA.

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
All you're really doing is turning a tap, and in your lab collecting two litres of water which you can then filter on site, and this filter is then used for the genetic analysis.

Reading the eDNA signatures of ocean life could be the way of the future for biologists.

Dr Leonie Suter, AAD Genetic Research Officer:
What we're hoping is once we have the new icebreaker, the Nuyina, we'll be able to do ongoing monitoring with eDNA, so whenever the ship goes out we'll be collecting water samplesand can then analyse that and start creating a long-term monitoring program.

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Operations Outlook

Find out more: Coronavirus ‘curveball’ for Australian Antarctic operations

Operations Outlook

Video transcript

Planning an expedition season for Australia’s Antarctic program isn’t easy.

Charlton Clark, AAD General Manager Operations & Safety:
So much of what we do on the continent is driven by the weather and the climate. So we have a very short period each summer where we can resupply our stations and change over our personnel.

But because of COVID-19, this is a year like no other.

Charlton Clark:
That means putting in a range of procedures to quarantine expeditioners before they travel south, to limit the number of people travelling south and also looking at our logistics and supply chains to ensure that there’s no pathways for COVID to make its way to Antarctica.

About 250 expeditioners will be deployed to Davis, Casey, Mawson and Macquarie Island stations…

…half the usual amount, and just enough to keep the stations operational.

Charlton Clark:
So for some, particularly those who undergo a long period of training, are going to experience two periods of quarantine. The first one, to come in to Tasmania from wherever they may have come from, and then immediately prior to departure.

This season’s ship is coming from the northern hemisphere and will also have to quarantine in Hobart.

Charlton Clark
This year, we’ll be using the MPV Everest for the first time. It’s the interim vessel for this year due to the delays in the delivery of the Nuyina and the end of the operations of the Aurora Australis. So, we’re working with the operators of the vessel to ensure that it gets to Hobart in December so we can use it for the Antarctic summer season.

The Everest is able to access Davis and Mawson stations later in the season as the sea ice starts to clear.

On top of that, the planes normally used between Antarctic stations have been cancelled because of the coronavirus risk.

Charlton Clark
Typically those aircraft will fly from Canada, through America, through South America, down through the Antarctic Peninsula before they come across to our Antarctic stations. The risks associated with deploying those aircraft were too high.

That leaves three ship voyages servicing Australia’s four research stations, and about eight flights between Hobart and Wilkins Aerodrome, near Casey research station.

That means many of our expeditioners will spend an extra four months, homeward bound when the Everest arrives.

David Knoff, Davis station leader:
It’s still something like 200 days until we’ll be back in Australia, so we’re trying to break that down into logical steps – when do the flights start into Casey, when’s the ship going to head to Casey, when’s the ship even start in our program, because those milestones are a bit closer and we can tick them off and then hopefully we’ll wake up one day and the MPV Everest will be out in front of me here in Prydz Bay.

The Australian Antarctic Program is not alone.

Other Antarctic nations are making similar tough decisions.

For our Operations team, it’s business as usual in a changed world.

Charlton Clark:
We’ve got some fantastic people working to make sure the program is planned as well as it can be. We’ve got great leaders in our station leaders, our voyage leaders, and they’re all used to dealing with curveballs. This is just one large curveball that has been thrown at us and most people are responding in an amazing way.

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