McMurdo Station, Antarctica
McMurdo Station is the largest research station in Antarctica, and also the central staging station for the U.S. Antarctic Program. All US inland stations are resupplied through McMurdo, which in turn is supplied through flights from Christchurch, New Zealand, as well as via cargo vessel that docks once a year after icebreakers cut a channel through the frozen McMurdo Sound. During the austral winter McMurdo houses between 150 and 300 personnel, during the austral summer - October through February - this figure swells to over 1000 people.
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Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island, the location of two permanent research station: New Zealand's Scott Base, and the U.S.'s McMurdo Station. Also visible in this image are two of the three airfields used at different times of the year for supply flights to McMurdo and Scott Base, and White Island in the distant background.
Above: McMurdo has changed considerably over the years, with modern, new buildings gradually replacing the quonset huts and haphazard buildings of the early days. In the center of this picture is the modern Crary Science and Engineering Center, the main research laboratory facility in McMurdo.
The view from the top floor of the Crary Lab, across McMurdo Sound to Mt. Discovery on the left. The wide path is the road to the "Ice Runway" summer airfield (above).
An aerial view of McMurdo with the three sections of the Crary Lab visible in the center of the picture.
The Ice Runway, as seen from the Crary Lab. The tail fins of three LC 130 Hercules aircraft can be seen. Looming in the background is the Transantarctic Mountain Range (above).
An aerial view of Scott Base, New Zealand's permanent research station on Ross Island. Scott Base is locate near the transition between the thick, permanent Ross Ice Shelf that is fed off the giant glacier flowing down from the polar plateau, and the annual sea ice.
Approaching McMurdo Station from the sea ice. Crater Hill can be seen in the background.
Above: Facing away from McMurdo Sound, and towards Ross Island (the island that McMurdo is located on), a view towards the 'Mammoth Mountain Inn' and 'Hotel California' dorms, the Mechanical Equipment Center, the Berg Field Center and Observation Hill on the right hand side.
Above: two of the three main pods of the Crary Lab, McMurdo Sound in the background.
Tracked vehicles are used on ice and snow. When parked, all vehicles are plugged into the electircal system for heating (above).
The 'Spryte', an old type of tracked vehicle used by research teams on the sea ice near McMurdo (above).
Another view of a section of McMurdo Station, with the Transantarctic Mountains in view across McMurdo Sound.
