British researchers have unveiled a futuristic Antarctic research
base that can move, sliding across the frozen surface to beat the
shifting ice and pounding snow that doomed its predecessors. The British Antarctic Survey said Wednesday that the Halley VI Research
Station is the sixth facility to occupy the site on the Brunt Ice Shelf
-- a floating sheet of ice about 16 kilometres from the edge of the
South Atlantic. Most of the previous stations were crushed under the weight of the
polar snow, while Halley V had to be abandoned due to fears that the
station would be lost if the ice sheet split apart, survey spokesman
Paul Seagrove said in a telephone interview. He said this fate
"illustrates the problem of constructing research stations on moving
ice." Halley VI, designed by London-based Hugh Broughton Architects, looks
like something out of a "Star Wars" movie. The station is composed of a
series of four-legged modules linked by enclosed walkways. Triple-glazed
windows help trap heat, a vacuum drainage system keeps water
consumption down, and the ski-clad stilts keep the units about 4 metres
above the level of the ice. If the station needs to be moved, the
modules are disconnected and then towed to a new location, Seagrove
said. The station was built over four years because engineers could only work
for a nine-week period during the Antarctic summer. The total cost of
the station was nearly 26 million pounds (about $40 million). Halley, named for astronomer Edmond Halley, has served as a scientific
research site for more than 50 years. The British Antarctic Survey said
the region has served as "an important natural laboratory" for studies
of the Earth's magnetic field, its near-space atmosphere, and climate
change. It was data from Halley that led to the survey's 1985 discovery of the hole in the ozone layer. (CTV)
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