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Location
Aerial of Mawson Station
Photo: D. McVeigh | Mawson is situated on an isolated outcrop of rock on the coast in Mac.Robertson Land, at the edge of the Antarctic plateau at 67'36'S 6252'E. It is Australia's first continental station and the longest continuously operating station south of the Antarctic Circle.
The station is the most westerly of the three continental stations, lying about 5,200km south-west of Perth, Western Australia. It is situated on the south-eastern shore of Horseshoe Harbour, a small ice-free rock outcrop some 900 by 700m in size adjacent to the continental ice cap in Holme Bay, Mac Robertson Land.
The climate is typical of coastal East Antarctica where the ice cap falls steeply to sea level. The main climatic feature is the katabatics, or gravity-fed winds, which result from drainage of cold air down the steep slopes of the ice sheet from the higher interior of the continent. Prolonged periods of strong and gale force winds occur, averaging 50 knots, and sometimes wind gusts reach 130-140 knots. Sixteen kilometres inland, the wind is much stronger.
The plateau surface in the coastal region is mostly blue ice, occasionally covered by light snow in winter and spring.
The Mawson region is one of the richest areas for seabirds in the Australian Antarctic Territory, and supports breeding colonies of emperor and Adelie penguins, snow petrels, Antarctic petrels (the largest colony in Antarctica with 158,000 breeding pairs), Wilson's storm petrels, cape petrels, southern giant petrels, Antarctic fulmars and skuas.
You can download a QuickTime virtual panorama of Mawson.
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