GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE UKRAINIAN ANTARCTIC STATION REGION BEFORE 1996

Abstract

The author submits a chronological account on the history of geological exploration on the Graham Coast and the Wilhelm Archipelago of West Antarctica within the time interval from 1819 to 1996. The state of geological exploration of this area before the creation of the Ukrainian Antarctic Station (UAS) here is determined. A number of conclusions were made regarding: the temporal sequence of individual studies and the geological specifics of the territories covered by them; conditions for carrying out and features of the organization of field works; the reliability of the results of individual geological surveys; the presence of unexplored territories. It was found out that all reconnaissance and geological survey work in the study area was carried out in the 30–50s of the XXth century. Medium-scale geological surveys of individual parts of the Graham Coast and adjacent islands were carried out under unfavorable conditions. This led to the fragmentariness of the created geological maps and their heterogeneous support by field observations. Due to poor ice conditions and local features of the organization of geological routes, numerous bays on the Graham Coast, as well as its hard-to-reach inland territories, have remained completely unexplored. Also, many of the islands of the Wilhelm Archipelago were not covered by geological survey. In particular, there was no way to explore those islands that are remote from the navigable Lemaire Channel, Penola Strait and Grandidier Channel. The Argentine Islands are the only site where a large-scale geological survey has been carried out. But the available large-scale geological map of the Argentine Islands has a number of significant disadvantages. The map contains only petrographic data. There are no elements of bedding of rocks, tectonic deformations, zones of postmagmatic changes, manifestations of ore mineralization. The spatial distribution of the main petrographic representatives does not always correspond to the true one. The relative ages of individual geological bodies are insufficiently substantiated, and sometimes, in general, are determined incorrectly. All of the above-mentioned explains why the level of geological knowledge about the area at the time of the creation of the UAS here remained much worse than in the adjacent territories.