Australasian Antarctic Expedition
Encyclopedia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
n scientific team that explored part of Antarctica between 1911 and 1914. It was led by the Australian geologist
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
Douglas Mawson
Douglas Mawson
Sir Douglas Mawson, OBE, FRS, FAA was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer and Academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Mawson was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.-Early work:He was appointed geologist to an...
, who was knighted for his achievements in leading the expedition. In 1910 he began to plan an expedition to chart the 2000-mile long coastline of Antarctica to the south of Australia. The Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science approved of his plans and contributed substantial funds for the expedition. The remaining funds were raised by public subscription and additional donations.
Preparations
The team selected for the expedition came primarily from universities in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. Of the men who would occupy bases on the Antarctic continent, twenty-two were Australian residents. Four were New Zealanders, three British and one Swiss. Three of the leaders (Mawson, Wild and Davis) were veterans of other Antarctic voyages.
They would sail on the Newfoundland
Dominion of Newfoundland
The Dominion of Newfoundland was a British Dominion from 1907 to 1949 . The Dominion of Newfoundland was situated in northeastern North America along the Atlantic coast and comprised the island of Newfoundland and Labrador on the continental mainland...
sealing
Seal hunting
Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. The hunt is currently practiced in five countries: Canada, where most of the world's seal hunting takes place, Namibia, the Danish region of Greenland, Norway and Russia...
vessel Aurora
Aurora (ship)
SY Aurora was a steam yacht built by Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd. shipbuilders in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1876, for the Dundee Seal and Whale Fishing Company. Her primary use was whaling in the northern seas, and she was built sturdily enough to withstand the heavy weather and ice that would be...
, a steam-powered sailing vessel with a length of 165 feet and a displacement of 600 tons. The ship underwent modifications for the trip, including adding three large tanks for storing fresh water. The Aurora captain was John King Davis
John King Davis
John King Davis, CBE was an English-born Australian explorer and navigator notable for his work captaining exploration ships in Antarctic waters as well as for establishing meteorological stations on Macquarie Island in the subantarctic and on Willis Island in the Coral Sea.-Early life:Davis's...
.
The vessel departed for Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island Station
Macquarie Island Station, known as Macca to staff, is a permanent Australian subantarctic research base on Macquarie Island, lying about half-way between Australia and Antarctica...
on December 2, 1911, arriving on December 11 after surviving stormy weather during the crossing. A second vessel, the Toroa, followed with supplies and passengers. Departing Macquarie Island on December 23, the Aurora began exploring the coastal areas, during which the vessel and its men discovered and named King George V Land and Queen Mary Land.
Key members of the expedition included Frank Hurley
Frank Hurley
James Francis "Frank" Hurley, OBE was an Australian photographer and adventurer. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official photographer with Australian forces during both world wars.His artistic style produced many memorable images but he also used staged...
as official photographer, Frank Wild
Frank Wild
Commander John Robert Francis Wild CBE, RNVR, FRGS , known as Frank Wild, was an explorer...
as leader of the western base, Charles Hoadley
Charles Hoadley
Charles Archibald Brookes Hoadley was an Australian geologist. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1911 with a degree in mining engineering, and was a member of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Douglas Mawson from 1911–14. Hoadley was a member of the Western Base Party...
as geologist, and Cecil Madigan
Cecil Madigan
Cecil Thomas Madigan was an Australian explorer and geologist born in Renmark, South Australia.After attending Prince Alfred College in Adelaide and the University of Adelaide, he won a Rhodes scholarship in 1911 to study geology at Magdalen College, Oxford.In 1911 he was invited by Sir Douglas...
as meteorologist.
Base camps
The expedition built their main base, or winter quarters, at Cape DenisonCape Denison
Cape Denison is a rocky point at the head of Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who named it for Sir Hugh Denison of Sydney, a patron of the expedition...
in Commonwealth Bay
Commonwealth Bay
Commonwealth Bay is an open bay about 48 km wide at the entrance between Point Alden and Cape Gray in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who established the main base of the expedition at Cape Denison at the head of the bay...
, where eighteen men spent the winter of 1912 and seven spent the winter of 1913. (Their huts still stand - two intact and two as ruins: Mawson's Huts
Mawson's Huts
"Mawson's Huts" are the collection of buildings located at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, in the far eastern sector of the Australian Antarctic Territory, some 3000 km south of Hobart...
, now managed as an historic site by the Australian Antarctic Division). They also built two auxiliary bases, a support base and wireless relay station on Macquarie Island initially headed by George Ainsworth
George Ainsworth
George Frederick Ainsworth was an Australian meteorologist, public servant and businessman who headed one of the component parts of Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition .-Early years:...
, and a western base
Western Base Party
The Western Base Party was a successful exploration party of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. The eight-man Western Party was deposited by the Aurora on the Shackleton Ice Shelf at Queen Mary Land. The leader of the team was Frank Wild and the party included the geologist Charles Hoadley.The...
on the Shackleton Ice Shelf
Shackleton Ice Shelf
Shackleton Ice Shelf is an extensive ice shelf fronting the coast of East Antarctica for about 384 km , projecting seaward about 145 km in the western portion and 64 km in the east. It occupies an area of 33,820 km². It is part of Mawson Sea and separates the Queen Mary Coast to the west from...
, but these two auxiliary bases no longer survive.
The teams at all three bases conducted routine scientific and meteorological observations, which were recorded in great detail in the voluminous reports of the expedition (not published until 1922-1942). They also overcame months of failures with equipment and masts by eventually establishing the first Antarctic wireless radio connection (linked to Hobart via a radio relay station established at Wireless Hill
Wireless Hill
Wireless Hill is a steep-sided hill with a summit plateau that takes up most of the North Head promontory at the northern end of Australia’s subantarctic Macquarie Island, lying in the Southern Ocean about halfway between Australia and Antarctica...
on Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island
Macquarie Island lies in the southwest corner of the Pacific Ocean, about half-way between New Zealand and Antarctica, at 54°30S, 158°57E. Politically, it has formed part of the Australian state of Tasmania since 1900 and became a Tasmanian State Reserve in 1978. In 1997 it became a world heritage...
).
Sledging expeditions
Coastal and inland sledging journeys enabled the teams to explore previously unknown lands. In the second half of 1912, there were five major journeys from the main base and two from the western base.Mawson himself was part of a three-man sledging team, the Far Eastern Party
Far Eastern Party
The Far Eastern Party was a sledging component of the 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which investigated the previously unexplored coastal regions of Antarctica west of Cape Adare. Led by expedition commander Douglas Mawson, the party aimed to explore the area far to the east of their...
, with Xavier Mertz
Xavier Mertz
Xavier Mertz was a Swiss explorer, mountaineer and skier, from Basel. He took part in the Far Eastern Party, a 1912–13 component of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which claimed his life...
, and Lieutenant B. E. S. Ninnis
Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis
Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis was a Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and an Antarctic explorer who was a member of Sir Douglas Mawson's 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.-Antarctica 1911-1912:...
who headed east on November 10, 1912 to survey King George V Land. After three weeks of excellent progress the party was crossing the Ninnis Glacier
Ninnis Glacier
Ninnis Glacier is a large, heavily hummocked and crevassed glacier descending steeply from the high interior to the sea in a broad valley, on George V Coast in Antarctica. It was discovered by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who named it for Lieutenant B. E. S...
, when Ninnis fell through a snow-covered crevasse
Crevasse
A crevasse is a deep crack in an ice sheet rhys glacier . Crevasses form as a result of the movement and resulting stress associated with the sheer stress generated when two semi-rigid pieces above a plastic substrate have different rates of movement...
. Mertz had skied over the crevasse lid, Mawson had been on his sled with his weight disbursed but Ninnis was jogging beside the second sled and his body weight is likely to have breached the lid. Six dogs, most of the party's rations, their tent and other essential supplies disappeared into a massive crevasse 480 km east of the main base. Mertz and Mawson spotted one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 46m down but Ninnis was never seen again.
Mawson and Xavier Mertz turned back immediately. Their scanty provisions forced them to eat their remaining sled dogs, unwittingly causing a quick deterioration in the men's physical condition. The liver of one dog contains enough vitamin A
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...
to produce the condition called Hypervitaminosis A
Hypervitaminosis A
Hypervitaminosis A refers to the effects of excessive vitamin A intake.-Presentation:Effects include* Birth defects* Liver problems* Reduced bone mineral density that may result in osteoporosis* Coarse bone growths...
. Mertz became incapacitated and incoherent; in an attempt to nurse him back to health, Mawson fed him most of the dog livers, which he considered more nourishing than the tough muscle tissue. After Mertz died, Mawson continued alone. He cut his sled in half with a pen knife and dragged the sled with geological specimens but very minimal food 160 km back to the base at Cape Denison. During the return trip to the Main Base, he fell through the lid of a crevasse and was saved only by his sledge wedging itself into the ice above him. When Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison on February 8, 1913 the words of his first rescuer upon finding Mawson were, "My God, which one are you?" However it was just hours after Davis's recovery party had left on the Aurora. The ship was recalled by wireless communication, only to have bad weather thwart the rescue effort. Mawson, and six men who had remained behind to look for him, wintered a second unplanned year until December 1913.
Geology
As the expedition commander Douglas Mawson was himself a geologist, the examination of the accessible (i.e., not covered by ice) rock formations of Wilkes LandWilkes Land
Wilkes Land is a large district of land in eastern Antarctica, formally claimed by Australia as part of the Australian Antarctic Territory, though the validity of this claim has been placed for the period of the operation of the Antarctic Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory...
was a key feature of the expedition.
The expedition is noted for having achieved the first discovery of a meteorite
Meteorite
A meteorite is a natural object originating in outer space that survives impact with the Earth's surface. Meteorites can be big or small. Most meteorites derive from small astronomical objects called meteoroids, but they are also sometimes produced by impacts of asteroids...
, a chondrite
Chondrite
Chondrites are stony meteorites that have not been modified due to melting or differentiation of the parent body. They formed when various types of dust and small grains that were present in the early solar system accreted to form primitive asteroids...
, in Antarctica. Over the following century a trove of meteorites have been discovered in this region of Antarctica.
Meteorology
The location chosen by Mawson for the main base camp, at Cape DenisonCape Denison
Cape Denison is a rocky point at the head of Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica. It was discovered in 1912 by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson, who named it for Sir Hugh Denison of Sydney, a patron of the expedition...
, proved to be one of the places on Earth with the strongest wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
forces, with local morphology - the abrupt gradiant between the East Antarctic ice plateau and the Antarctic Ocean - creating conditions ripe for the generation of near-continuous katabatic wind
Katabatic wind
A katabatic wind, from the Greek word katabatikos meaning "going downhill", is the technical name for a drainage wind, a wind that carries high density air from a higher elevation down a slope under the force of gravity. Such winds are sometimes also called fall winds...
conditions.
See also
- Mawson's HutsMawson's Huts"Mawson's Huts" are the collection of buildings located at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, in the far eastern sector of the Australian Antarctic Territory, some 3000 km south of Hobart...
- List of Antarctic expeditions
- Heroic Age of Antarctic ExplorationHeroic Age of Antarctic ExplorationThe Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration defines an era which extended from the end of the 19th century to the early 1920s. During this 25-year period the Antarctic continent became the focus of an international effort which resulted in intensive scientific and geographical exploration, sixteen...
Additional reading
Primary sourcePrimary source
Primary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
s
- Benham, William Blaxland Shoppee (1921), Polychaeta, [Sydney] : Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
- Khler, René (1922), Echinodermata Ophiuroidea, Sydney : Printed by John Spence, acting government printer.
- Mawson, Douglas (1915), The Home of the Blizzard; Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914, Philadelphia, Lippincott.
- Mawson, Douglas (1918), Scientific Reports: Vol. 3, Pt. 1-6, Sydney: Govt. Printer.
Secondary sources
External links
- Mawson's Huts Historic Site Management Plan 2007-2012 (Australian Antarctic Division)
- Antarctic Explorers: Douglas Mawson
- Diary of Stan Taylor, Seaman on the Aurora 1912 -1913 journey
- Mawson and Mertz: a re-evaluation of their ill-fated mapping journey during the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition - examining the Vitamin A poisoning hypothesis.