3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition

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The Third Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1957-1959) was led by Yevgeny Tolstikov on the continent; the marine expedition on the "Ob" was led by I V Maksimov.

Two diesel-electric ships were used to transport the expedition. RV "Ob" (flagship; captain I A Man) and "Kooperatsiya" (captain A S Yantselevich), used mainly as a transport vessel. The ships arrived in Antarctica in Nov-Dec 1957. Together with the ships crews the expedition consisted of 445 men, of whom 183 were scheduled for wintering.

The tasks of the expedition were:

1. Relief of the 1956-1958 continental expedition and continuation of the IGY programme
2. Organisation of the Sovetskaya station at the Pole of relative inaccessibility
3. Continuation of tractor-sledge traverses in central antarctica
4. Oceanographic work on the "Ob" in the southern oceans, and cartography of the coast from Mirny to the Bellingshausen sea

The programme included 6 stations: (Mirny; Vostok; Sovetskaya; Oasis; Pionerskaya and Komsomol'skaya).

The first tractor-train to the interior left on 26 December, with 32 men. On 2nd January 1958 the train arrived at Pionerskaya, and left again on the 8th. On the 17th they reached Komsomol'skaya; conditions of traavel were difficult. A portion of the train (7 tractors and sledges) left on the 20th to relieve Vostok, arriving on the 27th, and delivering over 100 tons of cago. On the 28th the train left for Komsomol'skaya, arriving on the 31st. On the 3rd of February the train, with 27 men, left to found Sovetskaya; they reached 78 24'S, 87 35' E on the 10th, at an altitude of 3570 m. The station was rapdily constructed, and the train left on the 18th, returning to Mirny on the 4th of March, having completed a round trip of 4000 km.

[edit] Landscape features discovered

• Gamburtsev Mountain Range^[1]
• Golitsyn Mountains^[1]
• Schmidt plain^[1]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b c} 20 лет открытию Полюса недоступности Антарктиды: Метеорология и Гидрология. 1979, №3. Гидрометеоиздат. (Russian). AARI. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.

• A V Nudel Man Soviet Antarctic Expeditions 1955-1959, Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moskva, 1959 (translated from the russian by the Israel program for scientific translations, Jerusalem, 1966 for the National Science Foundation).