The historical development of McMurdo station, Antarctica, an environmental perspective ANDREW G. KLEIN$, MAHLON C. KENNICUTT II%, GARY A. WOLFF%, STEVE T. SWEET%, TIFFANY BLOXOM$, DIANNA A. GIELSTRA$ and MARIETTA CLECKLEY§ $Department of Geography, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA %Geochemical and Environmental Research Group, Texas A&M, College Station, TX, USA §Uniondale High School, Uniondale, New York, USA McMurdo Station is the logistics hub of the United States Antarctic Program, and localized environmental impacts have accompanied its nearly 50 years of continuous operation. An extensive collection of aerial photographs were used to map changes in the buildings, fuel storage tanks, roads, and physically disturbed areas at McMurdo Station since its establishment in 1956. From 1956 and continuing through the 1960s, rapid expansion of the station occurred. From 1970 until present, the area impacted by human activities has increased but at a much decreased rate. Current station operations are largely confined to areas that had already been impacted in the first 10 /15 years of the station operations. The spatio-temporal perspective on McMurdo Station’s growth provides a baseline from which future changes in the spatial extent of areas impacted by human activities can be monitored as required by the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. 1. Introduction The ice-free southern tip of the Hut Point Peninsula on Ross Island is geographically unique in all of Antarctica (Figure 1). The island’s high latitude  / just 729 nautical miles from the South Pole  / and its natural features have made it a compelling and practical location from which to conduct and support exploration and research for over 100 years. From this site in 1902, Robert F. Scott’s Discovery expedition staged the first expedition into the Antarctic interior and it supported later British expeditions throughout the heroic period of Antarctic exploration. The USA began permanent occupation of the site in December 1955, establishing Naval Air Facility McMurdo as a logistics base from which to construct and support a research facility at the geographic South Pole during the 1957 /1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY) (Sullivan 1957). Following the IGY, this base, renamed McMurdo Station in 1961, has continued to be the central science and operations facility of the US Antarctic Program (USAP). Located some two kilometers to the east of McMurdo Station is New Zealand’s smaller Scott Base which was officially opened on 20 January 1957. *Corresponding author. Email: klein@geog.tamu.edu (Klein) Polar Geography ISSN 1088-937X print/ISSN 1939-0513 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/10889370802579856 Polar Geography Vol. 31, Nos. 34, SeptemberDecember 2008, 119144 Downloaded By: [National Science Foundation] At: 14:00 18 May 2010