Antarctic Thesaurus
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map Mawson McMurdo measure melt stream methane mood
Mawson
Mawson, Thursday 26 July 2007, webcam, Davis station, courtesy The Australian Antarctic Division
Advances in technology have changed the man-made landscapes of Antarctica, and provided scientists with tools to observe the changes in its natural environment. As an experience, the Antarctic landscape remains, 'untrustable...larger than life' (Ward, 1955), in its elemental vastness and fickle weather.
The weather at Mawson can change dramatically from one minute to the next. Animations can be made to show these changes, using time lapse images like the one above, transmitted from Antarctic stations approximately every 10 minutes.
What has changed, and what has stayed the same at Mawson station since its establishment in 1954?
The space around you seems infinite. This is a place so very new, quite without a human history and it has that clean unlived-in feel of an empty new house. Everything is larger than life.
Jack Ward, Mawson Diary, 14th March, 1955
Jack Ward's 1955 diary entry could describe the natural landscape around Mawson today. The drawings of Fred Elliott, made from photographs he took during the construction of its first buildings, describe a different architecture. Since 1954, changes in the sea ice around Mawson have been observed by scientists at the Australian Antarctic Division. Are there images that could be animated to reflect these changes?
Fred Elliott, Mawson at end of 1954
NBS Hut was bought from a surplus Norwegian, British, Swedish expedition.
Fred Elliott, 2007
Fred Elliott was a weather observer with the Australian Antarctic Division, wintering on Heard Island (1953) and at Mawson (1954,55,58)
Jack Ward was radio officer with the Australian Antarctic Division and wintered on Mawson (1954,55)
