Matienzo Base (, or more often ''Base Matienzo'' or ''Estación Matienzo'') is an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

base and scientific

research station Research stations are facilities where scientific investigation, Data collection, collection, analysis and experimentation occurs. A research station is a facility that is built for the purpose of conducting scientific research. There are also man ...

named after

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...

Benjamín Matienzo, an Argentine aviation pioneer. It is located in Larsen Nunatak, one of the Foca Nunataks, in

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee ...

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martin in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. ...

. Matienzo is one of 13 research bases in Antarctica operated by Argentina. From 1961 to 1985 it served as a permanent base; since then it is open during the summer season only.

History

Matienzo was founded as ''Lieutenant Matienzo'' Joint Base () on 15 March 1961 as a joint effort between the

Argentine Army The Argentine Army () is the Army, land force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of Argentina. Under the Argentine Constitution, the president of Argentina is the commander-in-chief of the Armed For ...

and the

Argentine Air Force The Argentine Air Force (, or simply ''FAA'') is the air force of Argentina and one of three branches of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic. In 2018, it had 13,837 military and 6,900 civilian personnel. FAA commander in chief is Brigadie ...

. Under the command of then

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Ignacio Carro, several aircraft and

tracked vehicle Continuous track or tracked treads are a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the we ...

s were employed to transport more than of cargo from Esperanza. At the end of 1962 Matienzo was the launch site for the first major Air Force operation in the Antarctic. In what was called '' Operación Sur'' ("Operation South"), a

Douglas C-47 The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota ( RAF designation) is a military transport aircraft developed from the civilian Douglas DC-3 airliner. It was used extensively by the Allies during World War II. During the war the C-47 was used for troo ...

(TA-33) commanded by then Captain Mario Luis Olezza took off from the base trying to reach the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the point in the Southern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True South Pole to distinguish ...

and then land on

McMurdo Station McMurdo Station is an American Antarctic research station on the southern tip of Ross Island. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is ...

. This first attempt failed due to a fire in the airplane's engines. The plan could only materialize in 1965. On 15 November 1963 the base was transferred under exclusive command of the Air Force, and renamed as ''Destacamento Aeronáutico Teniente Matienzo'' ("Lieutenant Matienzo Aeronautical Detachment"), The Air Force kept a number of planes for exclusive service of the base. During 1964 an extensive program of meteorological and

climatological Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "slope"; and , ''-logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Climate concerns the atmospheri ...

observations was fulfilled: it included studying the glaciological profile across the Matienzo–Esperanza route and the coastal channel route between the Robertson Island and the 72° 30' S position. Also,

topographic Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

and aerial photographic surveys of the

Larsen Ice Shelf The Larsen Ice Shelf is a long ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula from Cape Longing to Smith Peninsula. It is named after Captain Carl Anton Larsen, the master of the ...

were made. In 1965 two Gamma Centauro

sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are often ...

s developed by the Argentine Air Force and two high altitude balloons carrying instruments for

x-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

measurements where launched from the base, under collaboration with the University of Tucumán and the Instituto de Investigaciones Aeronáuticas y Espaciales. That year the base name was changed to the present one. On 29 July 1968 a Beaver P-05 took off from Matienzo with the mission of assisting a critically ill medical patient in the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Base "F" on the

Argentine Islands The Argentine Islands are a group of islands in the Wilhelm Archipelago of Antarctica, situated southwest of Petermann Island, and northwest of Cape Tuxen on Kyiv Peninsula in Graham Land. They were discovered by the French Antarctic Exped ...

. Amidst very bad weather, the aircraft crashed without casualties and the evacuation had to be delayed until the

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller ...

ARA ''General San Martín'' could finally take over and succeed with the mission. Matienzo stayed closed through the 1972–1973 campaign, and was reopened on 8 September 1974; it was closed again for the 1984–1985 campaign and reopened once again, although it has been a summer-only base ever since.

Description

Matienzo is composed of 6 buildings and includes facilities such as: main and emergency houses, airstrip,

helipad A helipad is the landing area of a heliport, in use by helicopters, powered lift, and vertical lift aircraft to land on surface. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fa ...

, fuel platform, central power station with two Antarctic gas oil generators, waste treatment plant, laboratory, freezing chamber, a warehouse and several deposits. The long airstrip is located over a nearby

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

away, and is usable by all kind of ski-mounting aircraft. The snow-covered helipad is south from the base; several

Bell 212 The Bell 212 (also known as the ''Bell Two-Twelve'') is a two-blade, twin-engine, medium helicopter that first flew in 1968. Originally manufactured by Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, production was moved to Mirabel, Queb ...

helicopters are used for deployment and supply of scientific personnel. Matienzo also has a basic infirmary attended by a

paramedic A paramedic is a healthcare professional trained in the medical model, whose main role has historically been to respond to emergency calls for medical help outside of a hospital. Paramedics work as part of the emergency medical services (EMS), ...

. Periodically a Twin Otter aircraft deals with the transfer of personnel and cargo, as well as waste evacuation. The base actively manages preservation and restoration of the surrounding environment; garbage and waste is removed, concentrated, classified, packaged and compacted for later disposal in the Argentine mainland.

Scientific activity

Scientists at Matienzo carry out meteorological,

ionospheric The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

oceanographic Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of top ...

and snow science observations; they perform aerial photographic surveys and studies on

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

and

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and Physical property, properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct i ...

involving high precision gravity and magnetism measurements. Scientific and technical staff of the Argentine Antarctic Institute uses part of its facilities for winter–spring activities. The base is the launching point for expeditions to the Larsen Ice Shelf and Jason Peninsula. Staff of the National Meteorological Service commissioned at Matienzo keeps track of the masses of ice,

solar radiation Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrared (typically p ...

and atmospheric parameters. Retreat and collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf is constantly monitored by analyzing satellite imagery, GPS positioning and terrain data to investigate the ice-climate interactions in critical areas under

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

conditions.

Climate

The median annual temperature at the base is ; the highest temperature ever recorded was on 16 March 1965, and the lowest, on 5 August 1964.

References

External links