29th Indian Antarctic Expedition takes off,Third Base Stration on Agenda
BY: Dr.Y Bala Murali Krishna
Panaji, Nov 6,2k9 (UNI) The first batch of the 29th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica left today to the Maitri base research station in the icy continent to explore the area for benefiting humanity.
Dr P Elango of the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism led the 12-member team of scientists by flight via Mumbai through Cape Town. He will replace the leader of the 28th expedition Dr Pradeep Malhotra.
Informing this to UNI here today, director of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) Dr Rasik Ravindra said three other batches of scientists would leave for Antarctica by the end of this year to meet the mission objectives.
The main objective this year was to reach Larsemann Hills in the continent for setting up the third Indian base research station, 3000 KM away from the existing Maitri station.
The new station was likely to be launched by the year 2011-12 if everything goes well. The logistics operations had been completed earlier so that the new batch of scientists could start laying approach roads to the Larsemann Hills before dispatching modules for setting up of the station.
It might be recalled that the existing station Maitri had been in use by the scientists since 1988 after abandoning the first station named after the north Indian river the Dakshin Gangotri following a blizard.
The scientists however completed deep drilling operations in the Antarctica but continued shallow drilling, 100 to 150 Metres deep for collection of ice-cores to study the environment and various other aspects of the atmosphere and the continent datable to 20,000 years back.
Setting of the third station would further facilitate research by the Indian scientific team which had been coordinating as a nodal agency by the NCAOR under the union ministry of earth sciences through an integrated approach coordinating different universities and research bodies across the countries.
''No purpose would be served if the scientists engaged in deep drilling with several other countries already drilling several Kms deep into the ice-core,'' he said.
Interestingly, Indian scientists had identified As many as 25 new species of life in the icy continent collected in the ice cores during analysis made at the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology as against 125 made by other countries.
The ice-core studies for new life was expected to unravel the mysteries and origins of life of the earth besides exploring the various climates existing over the years millions of years.//EOM//



