K026-7475

Event 26 was origionally planned to carry out a detailed study of the sediments cored by the Dry Valley Drilling Project in McMurdo Sound. When Dr McKelvey, sedimentologist from the University of New England, was appointed project geologist by DVDP, Barrett and McKelvey agreed to share the scientific responsibility, McKelvey for the field description and Barrett for the laboratory analysis ( a proposal for grain size pebble and magnetic investigations had been submitted to DVDP in 1972). WE also planned an ancillary programme of sediment and pebble sampling from known sedimentary environments to get ‘baseline’ data to help interpret data from the drill core samples. The proposed areas of study included Taylor Glacier, Table Mountain and Crary Ice Rise. The visit to Table Mountain was also to assist and advise Russell Plume (Event 12) MSc student, with his project on basal Beacon sediments in South Victoria Land. The visit to the Crary Ice Rise, 700 km south-south east of Scott Base, was to investigate a patch of dirty ice discovered by geophysicists in the 1973/74 season. This was expected to give data on the character of sediment trapped in the ice of the Ross Ice Shelf.