A special inauguration ceremony was conducted on Sunday to celebrate the official reopening of the A.B. Dobrowolski Polar Station, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.
Four Polish scientists, accompanied by a group of their Russian peers from a nearby station, displayed the Polish national flag and played the national anthem to mark the occasion.
The four experienced geophysicists arrived in the East Antarctic in early January, following a two-month ship voyage and a helicopter flight.
Since then, the station has been equipped with solar-powered, automatic measuring apparatus, as well as a heating and water treatment system, the head of the Polish expedition, Prof. Marek Lewandowski, told IAR.
Thanks to the installed equipment, the station will be able to conduct calculations and send them to Warsaw, Lewandowski explained.
From now on, the Polish scientists will officially start carrying out research, before returning to Poland in the spring.
The A.B. Dobrowolski Station, established by the Russians and taken over by Poland in 1959, has been inactive since 1979, yet its location in the Bunger Oasis region of the East Antarctic makes it uniquely suitable for comprehensive geophysical research, according to scientists.
"It’s a unique place on Earth, where you can observe the framework of our planet’s inner core in a way that is unaffected by human activity or by seismic waves induced by the ocean," Prof. Lewandowski said.
(ał)
Source: IAR
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Agnieszka Bielawska.