Dome A or Dome Argus is the loftiest

ice dome Glacier morphology, or the form a glacier takes, is influenced by temperature, precipitation, topography, and other factors. The goal of glacial morphology is to gain a better understanding of glaciated landscapes and the way they are shaped. Ty ...

on the

Antarctic Plateau The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica which extends over a diameter of about , and includes the region of the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This h ...

, located inland. It is thought to be the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth, with temperatures believed to reach . It is the highest ice feature 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 ...

, consisting of an ice dome or eminence above sea level. It is located near the center of

East Antarctica East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority (two-thirds) of the Antarctic continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the continent, separated from West Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains. It lies almos ...

, approximately midway between the enormous head of

Lambert Glacier Lambert Glacier is a major glacier in East Antarctica. At about 50 miles (80 km) wide, over 250 miles (400 km) long, and about 2,500 m deep, it is the world's largest glacier. It drains 8% of the Antarctic ice sheet to the east and s ...

and the geographic

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

, within the Australian claim.

Description

Dome Argus is located on the massive

East Antarctic Ice Sheet The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is one of two large ice sheets in Antarctica, and the largest on the entire planet. The EAIS lies between 45° west and 168° east longitudinally. The EAIS holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by and ...

and is the highest ice feature of Antarctica. Dome A is a lofty ice prominence, the highest rooftop of the Antarctic Plateau, and the elevation visually is not noticeable. Below this enormous dome, underneath at least of ice sheet, lies the

Gamburtsev Mountain Range The Gamburtsev Mountain Range (also known as the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains) is a subglacial mountain range located in East Antarctica, just underneath the lofty Dome A, near the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. The range was discovered b ...

, about the size of the European Alps. The name "Dome Argus" was given by the

Scott Polar Research Institute The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south ...

from Greek mythology. Argus built the ship ''

Argo In Greek mythology the ''Argo'' (; in Greek: ) was a ship built with the help of the gods that Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The ship has gone on to be used as a motif in a variety of ...

'', in which

Jason Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He ...

and the

Argonauts The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo ...

traveled to

Colchis In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia. Its population, the Colchians are generally though ...

in search of the

Golden Fleece In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece ( el, Χρυσόμαλλον δέρας, ''Chrysómallon déras'') is the fleece of the golden-woolled,, ''Khrusómallos''. winged ram, Chrysomallos, that rescued Phrixus and brought him to Colchis, where ...

. This site is one of the driest locations on Earth and receives of snow per year. Due to this, as well as calm weather, this site is an excellent location to obtain

ice core An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier. Since the ice forms from the incremental buildup of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper ones, and an ice core contains ...

samples for the research of past climates. Temperatures at Dome A fall below almost every winter.

Exploration

Details of the morphology of this feature were determined by the SPRI-NSF-TUD airborne radio echo sounding program between the years 1967 and 1979. In January 2005 a team from the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expeditions (CHINARE) traversed from Zhongshan Station to Dome A and located the highest point of the ice sheet ( above sea level) by GPS survey at on January 18. This point is near one end of an elongate ridge (about long and wide), which is a major

ice divide An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposing flow directions of ice, analogous to a water divide. Ice divides are important for geochronological investigations that use ice cores, since such coring is typic ...

and has an elevation difference along its length of only a few meters. An automatic

weather station A weather station is a facility, either on land or sea, with instruments and equipment for measuring atmospheric conditions to provide information for weather forecasts and to study the weather and climate. The measurements taken include tempera ...

(AWS) was deployed at Dome A, and a second station was installed approximately halfway between the summit and the coast at a site called Eagle (, 2830 m above sea level). These AWS are operated as part of an ongoing collaboration between China and Australia and include a third AWS (LGB69) at , above sea level, which has operated since January 2002. The station at Dome A is powered by

solar cell A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.

s and

diesel fuel Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and ...

and requires yearly service and refuelling.

Extreme temperatures

The coldest air temperature recorded by thermometer at Dome A since January 2005 was in July 2005. This may have been beaten by an unconfirmed reading of in June 2019. The lowest surface temperature ever measured on the surface of the Earth () was recorded by satellite on August 10, 2010, between Dome Argus and

Dome F Dome Fuji (ドームふじ ''Dōmu Fuji''), also called Dome F or Valkyrie Dome, is an Antarctic base located in the eastern part of Queen Maud Land at . With an altitude of above sea level, it is the second-highest summit or ''ice dome'' of ...

uji. Analysis of satellite data and atmospheric models shows that

Ridge A Ridge A is a site in Antarctica that was identified in 2009 as the best suited location on the surface of Earth for astronomical research. The site, approximately from the South Pole and southeast of Dome A, is situated in a portion of Antarctic ...

, which is located southeast of Dome A, is potentially an even better location to look for the lowest temperatures on Earth.

Observatory

The

Polar Research Institute of China The Polar Research Institute of China () (PRIC) is the main Chinese research institute for the study of Earth's polar regions. It is based in Shanghai, China. The Institute manages five polar research stations (four in Antarctica and one in the A ...

deployed a robotic observatory called PLATO (PLATeau Observatory) on the dome in January 2008. PLATO was designed and built by the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...

, Sydney, Australia to provide a platform from which astronomical observations and site-testing could be conducted. Various institutions from Australia, US, China and the UK provided instruments that were deployed with PLATO, these instruments included CSTAR, Gattini, PreHEAT, Snodar, Nigel and the PLATO web cameras. The Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Science

established a wireless network technology based observation system called Dome A-WSN on the dome in January 2008. The Antarctic Kunlun Station, Kunlun Station, China's third station in Antarctica, was set up at the dome on January 27, 2009. Thus far the Antarctic Kunlun Station is suitable as a summer station, but there are plans to develop it further and build an airfield nearby to ease servicing, as it is not reachable by

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

References

External links

AAD website
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100324134431/http://mcba11.phys.unsw.edu.au/~plato/plato.html PLATO – Dome A Robotic Observatorybr>Live Webcams From Dome AInternational Polar Foundation coveragePLATO – Dome A Robotic Observatory – Chinese Translation
(China Daily, Oct 14 2004)

(People's Daily, Jan 19 2005)
Chinese Engineer Receives Medical Treatment After Falling Ill During Antarctic Traverse
(US National Science Foundation, Jan 19 2005)

(People's Daily, Jan 21 2005)

(Beijing Review, May 2005)
OpenStreetMap
{{Antarctica East Antarctica Plateaus of Antarctica Outposts of Antarctica Ice caps of Antarctica Mountains of Antarctica Australian Antarctic Territory Extreme points of Earth