KOCHI: Akademic Boris Petrov, the ice-class ocean research vessel chartered by the Department of Ocean Development, has set sailing to the Antarctica from Goa for establishing the third Indian station there.

The new station will be set up at Pritz Bay close to Larseman Hills, which is 1,000 nautical miles away from the existing stations — Dakshin Gangotri and Maithri — established in 1983, A.C. Narayana, a member of the Antarctica expedition team, told The Hindu.

The vessel left Goa on January 25 and will reach Mauritius on February 6 from where a final batch of three scientists, including Dr. Narayana, will join the expedition.

Dr. Narayana, Reader of the Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics of the Cochin University of Science and Technology and an expert in marine geology and geophysics, will leave for Mauritius from Kochi on Sunday.

It was for the first time that a scientist from the university was joining the Antarctic expedition, he said.

Dakshin Gangotri had become non-functional for quite some time. Only Australia, Russia and China have stations at Pritz Bay.

During the expedition, the scientists will collect sediment and water samples from Southern Ocean and the Antarctica for preparing a baseline data of oceanographic and environmental aspects, which will help future climatic predictions. The sample collection would start from Mauritius, he said.

M. Sudhakar of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research is leading the expedition, which will last two months. The vessel has 60 persons, including 27 scientists, and the team is expected to spend nearly 20 days in the Antarctica.

The participating agencies in the expedition include the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, Indian Meteorological Department, Indian Institute of Science and National Institute of Oceanography.

Dr. Narayana will focus on the climatic and environmental changes that had occurred in the ocean for the past 40,000 years using the mineralogical and magnetic studies. The period is relevant for the researchers, as the present-day coastal configuration evolved during this period.

During this period, several abrupt cold and warm events have been documented in the past climatic records. The new expedition will explore these entries in the Southern hemisphere, said Dr. Narayana.

Scientific data collected will have to be reported to the Antarctica Treaty System under the United Nations Organisation.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail