WThe United States Antarctic Program is an organization of the United States government which has presence in the Antarctica continent. Founded in 1959, the USAP manages all U.S. scientific research and related logistics in Antarctica as well as aboard ships in the Southern Ocean.
WThe 109th Airlift Wing is a unit of the New York Air National Guard, stationed at Stratton Air National Guard Base, Schenectady, New York. If activated to federal service, the Wing is gained by the United States Air Force Air Mobility Command.
WThe 300 Club is a small number of individuals who have endured a temperature difference of 300° Fahrenheit (166 °C) within minutes. The group originated at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica and has since been established in North America.
WThe Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is the United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the southernmost point under the jurisdiction of the United States. The station is located on the high plateau of Antarctica at 2,835 metres above sea level. It is administered by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation, specifically the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). It is named in honor of Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Briton Robert F. Scott, who led separate teams that raced to become the first to the pole in the early 1900s.
WThe Byrd Station is a former research station established by the United States during the International Geophysical Year by U.S. Navy Seabees during Operation Deep Freeze II in West Antarctica.
WEights Station was an Antarctic permanent exploration base from January 1963 to November 1965, located on Ellsworth Land about 1100 km from Byrd Station and 2400 km from McMurdo Station. The station consisted of 11 prefabricated buildings that were brought in via planes and located on the site of the former "Sky-Hi" airlift project temporary scientific camp. The station was named for James Eights who was the first American Naturalist who visited Antarctica at the beginning of the 19th Century. The station was initially supported by 6 scientists and 5 Armed Forces attendants and included observations on meteorology, the ionosphere, geomagnetism, and aurora and radio waves. At its peak, Eights Station hosted 27 personnel, including individuals from the U.S. Antarctic Research Program Summer Party.
WEllsworth Scientific Station was a permanent, all year-round originally American, then Argentine Antarctic scientific research station named after American polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth. It was located on Gould Bay, on the Filchner Ice Shelf.
WUSNS Eltanin (T-AK-270/T-AGOR-8) was an Eltanin-class cargo ship with an ice-breaking hull acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1957 and then operated by the Navy in a non-commissioned status, named after Eltanin, a star in the constellation Draco. Her designation was changed to that of an oceanographic research ship in 1962 when she operated in Antarctic waters.
WRV Laurence M. Gould is an icebreaker used by researchers from the United States' National Science Foundation. for research in the Southern Ocean. The vessel is named after Laurence McKinley Gould, an American scientist who had explored both the Arctic and Antarctic. He was second in command of Admiral Richard E. Byrd's first expedition to Antarctica from 1928 to 1930. He helped to set up an exploration base at Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf at the Bay of Whales.
WThe Captain Pieter J. Lenie Base is an Antarctic summer base operated by the United States located at Copacabana Beach, Admiralty Bay. About two kilometers northwest of this base is the Polish research station Arctowski. Pieter J. Lenie Base, also known as Copa, consists of three small buildings at the foot of Rescuers Hills, near Llano Point.
WLittle America was a series of Antarctic exploration bases from 1929 to 1958, located on the Ross Ice Shelf, south of the Bay of Whales.
WLittle Rockford was an Antarctic exploration base from December 1958 to January 1965, located on the Ross Ice Shelf, south of the Bay of Whales. Little Rockford was a field camp and weather station along the Little America tractor trail and was located between McMurdo Sound and Byrd Station, 160 miles from Little America. It was named after Rockford, Illinois, the hometown of Admiral George Dufek. Admiral Dufek was in charge of the United States military mission, through the United States Navy, to support research in Antarctica named Operation Deep Freeze, and the first man to land at the South Pole by airplane.
WThe Nathaniel B. Palmer is an ice-capable research ship owned by Offshore Service Vessels LLC, operated by Edison Chouest Offshore, Inc. and chartered by the United States National Science Foundation. The Nathaniel B. Palmer is tasked with extended scientific missions in the Antarctic. The Nathaniel B. Palmer was purpose-built for and delivered to the NSF by Edison Chouest Offshore's North American Shipbuilding facility in 1992. The Nathaniel B. Palmer carries a helicopter, accommodates up to 37 scientists, has a crew of 22 and is capable of missions lasting up to 75 days. The vessel is named after merchant mariner and ship builder Nathaniel Brown Palmer, credited by some historians as the first American to see Antarctica.
WOperation IceBridge is an ongoing NASA mission to monitor changes in polar ice. It is an airborne follow-on mission to the ICESat satellite, continuing until after the ICESat-2 mission launch in September 2018.
WPalmer Station is a United States research station in Antarctica located on Anvers Island, the only US station located north of the Antarctic Circle. Initial construction of the station finished in 1968. The station, like the other U.S. Antarctic stations, is operated by the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) of the National Science Foundation. The base is about as distant from the equator as Fairbanks, Alaska.
WThe South Pole Traverse, also called the South Pole Overland Traverse, is an approximately 995-mile-long (1,601 km) flagged route over compacted snow and ice in Antarctica that links McMurdo Station on the coast to the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, both operated by the National Science Foundation of the United States. It was constructed by levelling snow and filling in crevasses; flags mark its route from McMurdo Station across the Ross Ice Shelf to the Leverett Glacier, where the route ascends to the polar plateau and on to the South Pole.
WThe United States Antarctic Expedition Medal is a combined military-civilian award that was authorized by the United States Congress on September 24, 1945 under Public Law 185 of the 79th Congress. The award recognizes members of the United States Antarctic Expedition of 1939–1941. There were gold, silver, and bronze versions. It is unclear if the gold version is considered a Congressional Gold Medal, as was the case with the 1st Byrd expedition.
WThe WAIS Divide is the ice flow divide on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) which is a linear boundary that separates the region where the ice flows to the Ross Sea, from the region where the ice flows to the Weddell Sea. It is similar to a continental hydrographic divide.
WWinter Quarters Bay is a small cove of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, located 2,200 miles (3,500 km) due south of New Zealand at 77°50'S. The harbor is the southernmost port in the Southern Ocean and features a floating ice pier for summer cargo operations. The bay is approximately 250m wide and long, with a maximum depth of 33m. The name Winter Quarters Bay refers to Robert Falcon Scott's National Antarctic Discovery Expedition (1901–04) which wintered at the site for two seasons.