Русский
It doesn’t get much further into the Global South than Antarctica, and Russia and China are in talks over joint drilling of the Gamburtsev Mountain Range in the middle of the continent, the Russian Federal Agency for Mineral Resources (Rosnedra) has stated.
Last month, the Chinese cities of Beijing and Changchun hosted international conferences on Antarctic exploration, which were attended, among others, by specialists from VNII Okeangeologia, part of Russia’s Rosnedra. They discussed a Russian-Chinese project to drill in Antarctica and future cooperation plans. In particular, they analyzed plans on geophysical surveying of a well on Princess Elizabeth Land during the 2024-2025 season.
In addition, a proposal was made for a Russian-Chinese project to drill the Gamburtsev Mountains in central Antarctica, with Rosnedra saying that “By the scientific results which could be obtained during the drilling, this project could be called one of the most advanced industry projects of our time.”
The project will be research driven and exploratory in nature, drilling will be conducted to further study the mineral composition of this region of Antarctica.
The Gamburtsev Mountains are a subglacial mountain range located in East Antarctica, near Dome A, close to the South Pole of Inaccessibility. The mountains were discovered by the 3rd Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1958 and named in honor of the Soviet geophysicist and academician Grigory Alexandrovich Gamburtsev. The formation is 1200-1300 km long and 200-500 km wide. The highest known heights are 2990 meters and 3390 meters. The height of the ice cover is not less than 600 meters, there are areas where the ice thickness is more than 4 km. The size of the Gamburtseva Mountains corresponds approximately to the European Alps. The Gamburtsev Mountains were first formed more than 1 billion years ago during the formation of the supercontinent Rodinia as a result of the collision of ancient continents.
