Antarctica: Turkish scientists map island

By Dilara Zengin</p> <p>ANTARCTICA (AA) – A team of Turkish scientists in Antarctica have created a three-dimensional map of Horseshoe Island by land and sea, a Turkish navy sergeant said Friday.</p> <p>Earlier in February, a Turkish team traveled to Antarctica as part of the Third National Antarctic Science Expedition to spend 30 days.</p> <p>“The sea maps are pathfinders for sailors,” Murat Ates, chief master sergeant in Turkish Naval Forces Office of Navigation, Hydrography and Oceanography (OHNO), told Anadolu Agency.</p> <p>Ates said: “The map created by Turkish Naval Forces will show where submerges and shallow surfaces are, and precautions will be taken for a safe sailing.”</p> <p>Soner Ozdemir, an engineer captain in General Directorate of Mapping, said they carry out geodetic studies that examine the shape, magnitude, gravitational field of the earth and their time-dependent changes.</p> <p>He underscored the importance of geodetic global positioning system (GPS) station near Turkey’s temporary science base on the island. The station allows scientists approach the island by boats with a precise positioning, he added.</p> <p>“We are planning to build a permanent GPS station about 40 miles near the island,” Ozdemir said and added: “Such a station will operate 24/7, all year long.”</p> <p>In April 2016, the first-ever Turkish team of researchers — including doctors, botanists, geologists, and oceanographers from seven universities — traveled to Antarctica to study the impact of climate change.</p> <p>Antarctica, which has no indigenous inhabitants and is not ruled by any country, is called the “peace and science continent.” It has served as a scientific research zone since the signing of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.</p> <p>Turkey currently holds observer status, but hopes to see this raised to consultative status.</p> <p>The lowest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica, in 1983, was -89 degrees Celsius (-128 Fahrenheit).</p> <p>In summer, however, mercury in the continent can climb as high as a balmy -15 degrees Celsius (5 Fahrenheit).