Plateau Station
Plateau Station | |
|---|---|
The station in 1968 | |
| Coordinates: 79°15′00″S 40°30′00″E / 79.2500°S 40.5000°E | |
| Region | Queen Maud Land |
| Established | 13 December 1965 |
| Closed | 29 January 1969 |
| Named after | Antarctic Plateau |
| Government | |
| • Type | Administration |
| • Body | USN, NSF; United States |
| Elevation | 3,624 m (11,890 ft) |
| Active times | All year-round |
Plateau Station Skiway | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
C-130 Hercules at Plateau Station | |||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||
| Operator | US Navy and National Science Foundation | ||||||||||
| Serves | Plateau Station | ||||||||||
| Location | Queen Maud Land Antarctica | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 12,027 ft / 3,666 m | ||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Plateau Station is an inactive American research and South Pole—Queen Maud Land Traverse support base on the central Antarctic Plateau. Construction on the site started on December 13, 1965, and the first traverse team (named SPQML II) arrived in early 1966. The base was in continuous use until January 29, 1969, when it was closed but mothballed for future use, and was the most remote and coldest of any United States stations on the continent. It was also the site for the world's coldest measured average temperature for a month at that time, recorded in July 1968, at −99.8 °F (−73.2 °C).