SANAE is the South African National Antarctic Expedition. The name refers both to the overwintering bases (numbered in Roman numerals, e.g.

SANAE IV SANAE IV is a current South African Antarctic research base located in Vesleskarvet, Queen Maud Land. The base is part of the South African National Antarctic Program (SANAP) and is operated by the South African National Antarctic Expeditio ...

), and the team spending the winter (numbered in Arabic numerals, e.g. SANAE 47). The current base, SANAE IV, is located at Vesleskarvet in

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land ( no, Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addi ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

. Summer teams comprise administrative and maintenance personnel, helicopter crew and scientists from various countries and can be up to 100 people. Overwintering teams consist of scientists and support personnel from

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, typically totalling 10 members in recent years. The research programme at the SANAE IV base is carried out under the auspices of the

South African National Antarctic Programme The South African National Antarctic Programme (or SANAP) is the South African government's programme for research in the Antarctic and Subantarctic. Three research stations fall under this programme: the Antarctica research station SANAE IV, ...

(SANAP).

SANAE IV from above the northern buttress

History

The first expedition, SANAE 1, overwintered at Norway Station, taken over by South Africa from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

after the end of the

IGY Immunoglobulin Y (abbreviated as IgY) is a type of immunoglobulin which is the major antibody in bird, reptile, and lungfish blood. It is also found in high concentrations in chicken egg yolk. As with the other immunoglobulins, IgY is a class of ...

. Later teams overwintered at SANAE I, SANAE II and SANAE III, built on the Fimbul Ice Shelf near the Blåskimen Island. Built on the moving ice shelf, these stations inevitably got buried, and eventually broke off as part of

icebergs An iceberg is a piece of freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

drifting away. Successive stations were always repositioned at the same geographical position of S 70º18 W 2º22.

was built on the nunatak Vesleskarvet in the hope of having a base with a longer lifetime. The first team to overwinter at SANAE IV was SANAE 36 in 1997. The base has been manned uninterruptedly since then.

References

External links

South African Research Station
- Official website
Facebook Group
- SANAE team discussions Outposts of Queen Maud Land South African National Antarctic Programme Princess Martha Coast 1962 establishments in Antarctica {{SouthAfrica-stub

History

See also

References

External links