HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Halley Research Station is a research facility in
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 cont ...
on the
Brunt Ice Shelf The Brunt Ice Shelf borders the Antarctic coast of Coats Land between Dawson-Lambton Glacier and Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee after David Brunt, British meteorologist, Physical Secretary ...
operated by the
British Antarctic Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic on ...
(BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the
Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing fo ...
. Measurements from Halley led to the discovery of the
ozone hole Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone lay ...
in 1985. The current base is the sixth in a line of structures and includes design elements intended to overcome the challenge of building on a floating ice shelf without being buried and crushed by snow. , the base has been left unstaffed through winter since 2017, due to concerns over the propagation of an ice crack and how this might cut off the evacuation route in an emergency. The
Halley Bay Halley Bay was a location on the fast ice on the north-western margin of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Coats Land, Antarctica. The series of British Halley Research Stations were constructed near here and named after the bay. The original ice bay was ...
Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...
with its
emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing from . Feathers of t ...
colony lies in the general vicinity of the base.


History

Halley Bay base was founded in 1956, for the
International Geophysical Year The International Geophysical Year (IGY; french: Année géophysique internationale) was an international scientific project that lasted from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific i ...
of 1957–1958, by an expedition from the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
. The bay where the expedition decided to set up their base was named after the astronomer
Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, H ...
. Taken over by FIDS (subsequently BAS), it was designated as Base Z. The name was changed to Halley in 1977 as the original bay had disappeared because of changes in the ice shelf. In 2002, BAS realised that a calving event was possible which could destroy Halley V, so a competition was undertaken to design a replacement station. The current base, Halley VI officially opened in February 2013 after a test winter. It is the world's first fully relocatable terrestrial research station, and is distinguishable by its colourful modular structure built upon huge hydraulic skis. On 30 July 2014, the station lost its electrical and heating supply during record low temperatures (as low as -55°C), due to coolant leakage. Plans were made to evacuate some of the eight modules and to shelter in the remaining few that still had heat. Power was partially restored 19 hours later, but all science activities, apart from meteorological observations essential for weather forecasting, were suspended for the season.


The buildings

As with the German
Neumayer-Station III Neumayer-Station III, also known as Neumayer III after geophysicist Georg von Neumayer, is a German Antarctic research station of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut. It is located on the approximately thick Ekström Ice Shelf several kilometres south ...
, the base floats on an
ice shelf An ice shelf is a large floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland, Northern Canada, and the Russian Arctic. The ...
in the
Weddell Sea The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha ...
rather than being built on solid land of the continent of Antarctica. This ice shelf is slowly moving towards the open ocean and, if not relocated, each base would eventually calve off into a drifting
iceberg An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...
. There have been five previous bases at Halley. Various construction methods have been tried, from unprotected wooden huts to buildings within steel tunnels. The first four all became buried by snow accumulation and crushed until they were uninhabitable. The more recent structures have been designed to remain on the snow surface.


Halley I

* Built: 1956 ** 1956: Main structure ** 1961: Main living hut ** 1964: Office block on surface * Abandoned: 1968 * Structure: Timber hut


Halley II

* Built: 1967 * Abandoned: 1973 * Structure: A series of wooden huts ** The roofs were reinforced with steel supports to help support the weight of the snow but the station still had to be abandoned in 1973, after just six years.


Halley III

* Built: 1973 * Abandoned: 1983 ** In 10 years the base was buried 12–15 metres below the surface and access and ventilation problems led to its abandonment. Years later it emerged from the ice cliff at the sea. * Structure: Built inside
Armco AK Steel Holdings Corporation was a steelmaking company headquartered in West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio. The company, whose name was derived from the initials of Armco, its predecessor company, and Kawasaki Steel Corporation, was a ...
steel tubing designed to take the snow loadings building up over it


Halley IV

* Built: 1983 * Abandoned: 1994 * Structure: ** Two-storey buildings constructed inside four interconnected plywood tubes with access shafts to the surface. The tubes were 9 metres in diameter and consisted of insulated reinforced panels designed to withstand the pressures of being buried in snow and ice. ** Designed to cope with being buried in snow.


Halley V

* Built: completed 1990, operational 1989 * Demolished: late 2012 ** Once its successor, Halley VI, was operational, Halley V was demolished. * Structure: ** Main buildings were built on steel platforms that were raised annually to keep them above the snow surface. ** Stilts were fixed on the flowing ice shelf so it eventually became too close to the calving edge. ** Lawes platform: Main platform ** Drewry summer accommodation: Two-storey building was on skis and could be dragged to a new higher location each year. *** The Drewry block was later moved to join the Halley VI base ** Simpson Building (Ice and Climate Building) (ICB): On stilts and was raised each year to counteract the buildup of snow *** It housed the
Dobson spectrophotometer The Dobson spectrophotometer, also known as Dobsonmeter, Dobson spectrometer, or just Dobson is one of the earliest instruments used to measure atmospheric ozone. History The Dobson spectrometer was invented in 1924 by Gordon Dobson. A histor ...
used to discover the ozone hole. ** Piggott platform (Space Science Building): Used for upper atmosphere research.


Halley VI

* Built: Over four summers, first operational data 28 February 2012, officially opened 2013. * Structure: Modular * Cost: Approximately £26 million Halley VI is a string of eight modules which, like Halley V, are jacked up on hydraulic legs to keep it above the accumulation of snow. Unlike Halley V, there are retractable giant skis on the bottom of these legs, which allow the building to be relocated periodically. The Drewry summer accommodation building and the garage from Halley V were dragged to the Halley VI location and continue to be used. The Workshop and Storage Platform (WASP) provides storage for field equipment and a workshop for technical services. There are six external science cabooses which house scientific equipment for each experiment spread across the site and th
Clean Air Sector Laboratory (CASLab)
1 km from the station.


Design competition

An
architectural design competition An architectural design competition is a type of design competition in which an organization that intends on constructing a new building invites architects to submit design proposals. The winning design is usually chosen by an independent panel ...
was launched by
RIBA Competitions RIBA Competitions is the Royal Institute of British Architects' unit dedicated to organising architectural and other design-related competitions. Architectural design competitions are used by an organisation that plans to build a new building or re ...
and the
British Antarctic Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic on ...
in June 2004 to provide a new design for Halley VI. The competition was entered by a number of architectural and engineering firms. The winning design, by
Faber Maunsell Oscar Faber (5 July 1886 – 7 May 1956) was a British structural engineer. He was influential in the development of the use of reinforced concrete in the United Kingdom. Because many engineers were not certain of the material, Faber pioneered si ...
and Hugh Broughton Architects was chosen in July 2005. Halley VI was built in Cape Town, South Africa by a South African consortium. A total of 26
modular accommodation A modular building is a prefabricated building that consists of repeated sections called modules. Modularity involves constructing sections away from the building site, then delivering them to the intended site. Installation of the prefabricated ...
pods were added in total, installed in eight modules, which provides fully serviced accommodation for 32 people. The first sections were shipped to Antarctica in December 2007. It was assembled next to Halley V, then dragged one-by-one 15 km and reconnected. Halley VI Station was officially opened in Antarctica on 5 February 2013. Kirk Watson, a filmmaker from Scotland, recorded the building of the station over a four-year period for a short film. A description of the engineering challenges and the creation of the consortium was provided by
Adam Rutherford Adam David Rutherford (born 1975) is a British geneticist and science populariser. He was an audio-visual content editor for the journal ''Nature'' for a decade, and is a frequent contributor to the newspaper ''The Guardian''. He hosts the BBC R ...
to coincide with an exhibition in Glasgow.


Design elements

A focus of the new architecture was the desire to improve the living conditions of the scientists and staff on the station. Solutions included consulting a colour psychologist to create a special colour palette to offset the more than 100 days of darkness each year, daylight simulation lamp alarm clocks to address biorhythm issues, the use of special wood veneers to imbue the scent of nature and address the lack of green growth, as well as lighting design and space planning to address social interaction needs and issues of living and working in isolation. Another priority of the structure construction was to have the least environmental impact on the ice as possible.


Relocation

The British Antarctic Survey announced that it intended to move Halley VI to a new site in summer 2016–2017. A large crack had been propagating through the ice and threatened to cut the station off from the main body of the ice shelf, prompting the decision to move. This shifted the station from its previous site, the first and only time the station has been moved since it became operational in 2012. ''
Horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...
'', the long-running BBC documentary series, sent film-maker Natalie Hewit to Antarctica for three months to document the move. BAS completed the relocation of the base in February 2017. Whilst the station was being relocated, concerns over another crack (dubbed the "Halloween Crack") emerged. This crack had been discovered on 31 October 2016, and now the BAS realized that it too could cut off the station, and possibly make it drift out to sea. Since evacuating the crew is all but impossible during winter, the BAS announced in March 2017 it would withdraw its staff from the base during March through October. Staff returned after the Antarctic winter in November 2017 and found the station in very good shape. the staff have been removed every winter since.


Climate

Temperatures at Halley rarely rise above 0 °C although temperatures around -10 °C are common on sunny summer days. Typical winter temperatures are below -20 °C with extreme lows of around -55 °C. Winds are predominantly from the east; strong winds often picking up the dusty surface snow reducing visibility to a few metres. One of the reasons for the location of Halley is that it is under the auroral oval, making it ideally located for
geospace Outer space, commonly shortened to space, is the expanse that exists beyond Earth and its atmosphere and between celestial bodies. Outer space is not completely empty—it is a near-perfect vacuum containing a low density of particles, pred ...
research and resulting in frequent displays of the
Aurora Australis An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...
overhead. These are easiest to see during the 105 days (29 Apr - 13 Aug) when the Sun does not rise above the horizon.


Inhabitants

In the peak summer period, from late December to late February, staff numbers count about 70.


Winter Crew

In a typical winter the team is isolated from when the last aircraft leaves in early March until the first plane arrives in late October. Before BAS shut down winter operations, there were around 13 overwintering staff. Most are the technical specialists required to keep the station and the scientific experiments running. The 2016 wintering team at Halley included a chef, a doctor, a communications manager, a vehicle mechanic, a generator mechanic, an electrician, a plumber, a field assistant, two electronics engineers, a meteorologist and a data manager. In addition there is a winter station leader who is sworn in as a
magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judic ...
prior to deployment and whose main role is to oversee the day-to-day management of the station. 1996 saw the first female winterers at Halley. In 2006, five out of sixteen winterers were women.


Base life

Life in Antarctica is dominated by the seasons, with a short, hectic summer and a long winter. In bases such as Halley that are resupplied by sea, the most significant event of the year is the arrival of the resupply ship (planned , until 2020 , before 1999, ) in late December. This is followed by intense activity to unload all supplies before the ship has to leave again; typically, this is done in less than two weeks. The Halley summer season runs from as early as mid-October when the first plane lands, until early March when the ship has left and the last aircraft leaves transiting through Halley and on to
Rothera Research Station The Rothera Research Station is a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) base on the Antarctic Peninsula, located at Rothera Point, Adelaide Island. Rothera also serves as the capital of the British Antarctic Territory, a British Overseas Territ ...
before heading to South America. Significant dates in the winter are sundown (last day when the Sun can be seen) on April 29, midwinter on June 21 and sunrise (first day when the Sun rises after winter) on August 13. Traditionally, the oldest person on base lowers the tattered flag on sundown and the youngest raises a new one on sunrise. Midwinter is a week-long holiday, during which a member of the wintering team is chosen to keep the old flag.


In popular culture

The 2019 movie ''
Where'd You Go, Bernadette ''Where'd You Go, Bernadette'' is a 2012 epistolary comedy novel written by Maria Semple. The plot revolves around an agoraphobic architect and mother named Bernadette Fox, who goes missing prior to a family trip to Antarctica. It is narrated b ...
'' ends with footage and animated renderings of Halley VI.


See also

* List of Antarctic research stations *
List of Antarctic field camps Many Antarctic research stations support satellite field camps which are, in general, seasonal camps. The type of field camp can vary – some are permanent structures used during the annual Antarctic summer, whereas others are little more than te ...
*
List of airports in Antarctica __TOC__ List , 18/36Ice , - valign=top , Palmer SkiwayHeliport , , NZ12 , , Anvers Island , , 01/19Snow , - valign=top , Patriot Hills Blue-Ice Runway , , SCPZ , , Ellsworth Mountains , , 24MIce , - valign=top , Pegasu ...


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links


Official website British Antarctic Survey

Designed By Petrel Engineering
*
BAS images of Halley station
* * :Videos
Gemma Clarke, Structural Engineer with Faber Maunsell discusses working on Halley VI

RIBA, Architecture and Climate Change talks: Hugh Broughton, Halley VI Research Station
* {{Authority control Outposts of Antarctica British Antarctic Territory British Antarctic Survey 1956 establishments in Antarctica