The 9th Soviet Antarctic Expedition was the Soviet Antarctic Expedition that ran from 1963 to 16 March 1965. The expedition was led by Dr.

Mikhail Somov Mikhail Mikhailovich Somov (russian: Михаил Михайлович Сомов; , in Moscow – 30 December 1973, in Leningrad) was a Soviet oceanologist, polar explorer, Doctor of Geographical Sciences (1954). Somov graduated from the Moscow ...

. This expedition featured the first British exchange scientist, a glaciologist. Two ships carried the expedition from the

Baltic sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

, the ''Ob'', an icebreaker and the ''Estonia'', a

passenger liner A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...

Research

Research during the expedition was split into two groups. The first being geophysical;

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...

, geomagnetism, earth currents, aurora,

cosmic rays Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...

, radio propagation, aerology and

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

. The second group was more fieldwork based; mapping new land,

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamic ...

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

and

glaciology Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or more generally ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, climato ...

etc.

References

* Swithbank, C. (December 1966) "A Year with the Russians in Antarctica" in ''The Geographical Journal'', 132(4):463–74 09 Antarctic Expedition 09 Antarctic Expedition 09 Antarctic Expedition 09 Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations 1963 in Antarctica 1964 in Antarctica 1965 in Antarctica {{Antarctica-stub