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Vernadsky Station

360º Panoramic tour

A vir­tu­al tour through Ver­nad­sky Sta­ti­on (Argen­ti­ne Islands). Here you can find the cor­re­spon­den­ting tra­vel­b­log Ent­ry.

Have fun loo­king, we are loo­king for­ward to your feed­back!

Pan­ora­men Ver­nad­sky Sta­ti­on as a vir­tu­al tour/panoramic tour

Hint

Once you have ente­red the vir­tu­al tour, you can use the bar at the bot­tom, or click on sym­bols within the panos to enter the next one (only if the next loca­ti­on is visi­ble, not always available). Or you can just let it run and it will auto­ma­ti­cal­ly switch to the next pano after one tur­n­around. You can switch the sound off (upper right cor­ner) if you wish.
You can also view this vir­tu­al tour on iPads and other tablets if they are powerful enough and have an up-to-date sys­tems soft­ware. On desk­top sys­tems, you can use both HTML5/WebGL or Flash.

And if you like, you can share the Pano-Link or link it yours­elf 🙂

Pan­ora­mas

  1. Ver­nad­sky Sta­ti­on
  2. Cha­pel
  3. Ent­rance main buil­ding
  4. Ent­rance to working area
  5. Cor­ri­dor
  6. Work room
  7. Geo­lo­gy room
  8. Gym
  9. Bio­lo­gi­cal labo­ra­to­ry
  10. Fara­day Bar

Some addi­tio­nal infor­ma­ti­on about the indi­vi­du­al places:

Ver­nad­sky Sta­ti­on

The Ukra­ni­an base Ver­nad­sky is the suc­ces­sor of the Bri­tish Fara­day Base, which was sold to the Ukrai­ne in 1996 for one sym­bo­li­cal pound ster­ling. Sin­ce then, the Ver­nad­sky sta­ti­on is ope­ra­ted year-round by the Natio­nal Ant­ar­c­tic Sci­en­ti­fic Cent­re. Named after the Ukra­ni­an sci­en­tist Volo­dym­ir (or Vla­di­mir) Ver­nad­sky (1863-1945), it is the oldest sci­en­ti­fic base in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca that is still ope­ra­ted today.

His­to­ri­cal­ly, its roots are lin­ked to the Bri­tish Base F (Wordie House).

Cha­pel

The latest addi­ti­on to the Ver­nad­sky sta­ti­on is the litt­le cha­pel, which was built in 2012.

Ent­rance main buil­ding

This is whe­re you take your shoes off, under super­vi­si­on of Volo­dym­yr Ver­nad­sky, who is han­ging on the wall, kee­ping a watchful eye on ever­y­bo­dy who is coming and going.

From here, you can eit­her access the working area (3) or go ups­tairs to the famous Fara­dy Bar (10).

Ent­rance to working area

This is whe­re you get to the various labo­ra­to­ries and work rooms. The ant­ar­c­tic main hazards are obvious­ly taken serious­ly here: the­re is a lot of fire­fight­ing equip­ment and emer­gen­cy plans in this area. The dry, win­dy cli­ma­te of Ant­ar­c­ti­ca makes fire an ever­pre­sent risk. And anyo­ne who lea­ves the base area has to lea­ve a note about his plans and return times here, so alarm can quick­ly be rai­sed and search-and-res­cue can be star­ted effi­ci­ent­ly if nee­ded.

Cor­ri­dor

This is how most working are­as in ant­ar­c­tic sta­ti­ons look like: long cor­ri­dors with seve­ral doors to the various labo­ra­to­ries and work rooms. Walls are usual­ly deco­ra­ted with maps, pho­tos of ear­lier sta­ti­on crews and his­to­ri­cal pho­tos.

Work room

Sci­en­ti­fic places in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca (or else­whe­re) are visual­ly often less exci­ting than you might expect. What you will main­ly see is com­pu­ters and a cou­ple of instru­ments, the mea­ning of which will only be rea­di­ly unders­tood by the initia­ted.

Geo­lo­gy room

The regio­nal geo­lo­gy is sub­ject to ongo­ing rese­arch. The more or less per­ma­nent ice cover on land makes geo­lo­gi­cal rese­arch very chal­len­ging. On the Argen­ti­ne Islands, whe­re the Ver­nad­sky sta­ti­on is situa­ted, you will find weak­ly meta­mor­phic vol­ca­nic rocks and gra­ni­to­id rocks dating back into the upper Juras­sic and into the Ter­tia­ry.

The sled­ges are lef­to­vers from ear­lier days. Dog sledge jour­ney are histo­ry now in Ant­ar­c­ti­ca.

Gym

A small crew will spend the win­ter on the Ver­nad­sky sta­ti­on. Even though it is about 140 kilo­me­t­res north of the ant­ar­c­tic cir­cle, the days are short during the win­ter and storms can be long and inten­se. This makes the gym a very important place for the win­tering crew.

Bio­lo­gi­cal labo­ra­to­ry

Next to atmo­sphe­ric sci­en­ces (meteo­ro­lo­gy, ozone) and geo­phy­sics (magne­tism), it is mari­ne bio­lo­gy that the sci­en­tists of Ver­nad­sky base spend a lot of their time with. How do mari­ne orga­nisms adapt to chan­ging cli­ma­tic para­me­ters such as incre­asing water tem­pe­ra­tures or chan­ging pH-values (aci­di­fi­ca­ti­on of sea water)? On Ver­nad­sky base, the bio­lo­gists make a con­tri­bu­ti­on to ans­we­ring the­se and other ques­ti­ons in a regio­nal con­text.

Fara­day Bar

Many visi­tors to the Ver­nad­sky sta­ti­on will have vivid memo­ries from the Fara­day Bar. This is whe­re sta­ti­on visits often have a pret­ty social ending, which is occa­sio­nal­ly said to have blen­ded into a long mer­ry evening. Bil­lard table and gui­tar are then put to good use. The­re was a tra­di­ti­on that ladies can trade their bra in for a drink, and the­re was some­ti­mes an impres­si­ve coll­ec­tion on the wall behind the bar towards the end of some suc­cessful sea­sons.

The litt­le sou­ve­nir shop is usual­ly very popu­lar, and so is the oppor­tu­ni­ty to send post­cards or to get the sta­ti­on stamp in the dia­ry.

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One Comment to Ver­nad­sky Sta­ti­on

  1. Bruce Moreman says:

    Inte­res­ted to see that you are using my pain­ting of the Fara­day take on the BAS crest. I pain­ted it in 1974 on the side of the old iono­sphe­ric sound­er (the Beas­tie). It still looks as fresh now as then.

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last modification: 2018-06-03 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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