National Antarctic Research Program (''Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide'' or PNRA) is the Italian

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

research program A research program (British English: research programme) is a professional network of scientists conducting basic research. The term was used by philosopher of science Imre Lakatos to blend and revise the normative model of science offered by K ...

. The PNRA is directed by the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) through two national bodies: the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) for the coordination of scientific research and the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) for the implementation of the

Antarctic expedition This list of Antarctica expeditions is a chronological list of expeditions involving Antarctica. Although the existence of a southern continent had been hypothesized as early as the writings of Ptolemy in the 1st century AD, the South Pole was n ...

s, for logistics and the maintenance of the two Antarctic stations. Italy started its National Antarctic Program in 1985 with the formation of the Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PNRA) and the National Scientific Committee for Antarctica (CSNA).

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

maintains two Antarctic research stations. The first one, built in 1986, is Mario Zucchelli Station at

Terra Nova Bay Terra Nova Bay () is a bay which is often ice free, about long, lying between Cape Washington and the Drygalski Ice Tongue along the coast of Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (known as the ...

, a permanent station. In 1993, Italy and

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

agreed to build a joint station at Dome C, named Concordia, which was inaugurated in 1997 and has operated as a year-round station since 2005, accommodating 15 persons in the winter and 60 in the summer. For shuttling to Antarctic stations and field camps, every year PNRA charters aircraft, helicopters, and a cargo/research ship.

Mario Zucchelli Station

Technical plants: * a unit for electrical and thermal energy generation, with four diesel generators (made up of two couples) * a co-generation system for the exploitation of the thermal energy produced by the power generators * a drinkable water production machine by desalting seawater * a burner and a wastewater cleaner * a nitrogen and a helium liquefiers Research topics: offshore

marine biology Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many scientific classification, phyla, family (biology), families and genera have some species that live in the sea and ...

, terrestrial

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...

geomagnetic Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...

observations,

geodesy Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...

, onshore

geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

glaciology Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, clim ...

meteorological Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agriculture ...

observations,

ionospheric The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays ...

auroral An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in polar regions of Earth, high-latitude ...

observations,

cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

observations,

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

and

environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...

Concordia Station Concordia Research Station, which opened in 2005, is a French–Italian research facility managed by l' Institut polaire français Paul-Émile Victor and Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide, that was built above sea level on a geogra ...

The station is a joint French-Italian research facility, managed by PNRA (National Antarctic Research Program) and IPEV (Institut Polaire Français). Research topics: human biology, geomagnetic observations, geodesy, glaciology, meteorological observations,

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

and environmental monitoring.

References

External links

Mario Zucchelli Station - pdf

Mario Zucchelli Station (English Text)

PNRA (COMNAP site)
{{Authority control Italy and the Antarctic Antarctica research agencies