Two of the outstanding problems in Antarctic earth sciences are the early history of the East Antarctic ice sheet, and the history of the Transantarctic Mountains. These two problems may well be linked, for if the initial uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains was sufficient to promote a permanent ice cap, this may have triggered formation of the East Antarctic ice sheet in the manner oudined by Drewry (1975, p 266). Glomar Challenger in 1973 made the first major breakthrough concerning early history of the ice sheet by recovering cores from the centre of the Ross Sea; they show that ice rafting began there 25 Ma BP and has been going on ever since (Hayes and others, 1975). However, the core data give little indication of the extent of ice cover, or of the climatic changes that led to expanded ice cover which produced the ice-rafted debris.

Three field experiments in widely separated parts of the Arctic were carried out during 1979 to complete a study of the interaction between ocean waves and sea ice in the marginal ice zone. The aim of the project is to determine the distribution of floe sizes that is generated by a given incident wave field, and this requires measurements of wave decay, of the bending and body responses of floes, and of the strain necessary to cause fracture. The first series of experiments was carried out in 1978 (Wadhams, 1979) off Labrador and east Greenland. The 1979 series consisted of participation in a University of Washington cruise aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship Surveyor to the Bering Sea; participation in the ground truth component of the Sursat remote sensing experiment off west Greenland; and finally a main summer experiment at Mesters Vig, east Greenland, in the same location as the 1978 main experiment. The Office of Naval Research (ONR), Washington DC, funded the study, and the two Greenland experiments were carried out in cooperation with the Electromagnetics Institute, Technical University of Denmark (TUD), Lyngby, with Danish government finance.

Among students of the history of reindeer domestication the Tuva occupy a special position. Their homeland, the Sayan mountains and the basin of the upper Yenisey, to the south-west of lake Baykal and to the north of the present-day frontier between the USSR and Mongolia, has frequently been suggested as the region where reindeer were first domesticated. This attribution rests on two types of evidence: the first archaeological, and largely consisting of rock carvings depicting reindeer; and the second ethnographic, comprising observations of the techniques of reindeer management employed by the Tuva, chiefly made by two western travellers, the Englishman Douglas Carruthers in 1910, and the Norwegian Ørjan Olsen in 1914. The fieldwork of Olsen has only been published in Norwegian (Olsen, 1915a; 1915b), and therefore has not been widely used by scientists. Yet of the two travellers he was perhaps better equipped to make technical ethnographic observations. In this article I shall analyse the descriptions of reindeer husbandry made by both men, but with especial attention to Olsen. I shall then assess the contribution that observations of the Tuva might make to the debate between ethnologists on where reindeer (Rangifer tarandus L) were first domesticated.

A necessary ingredient in the improvement of air services in remote Arctic areas is the development of a systematic programme of upgrading airport facilities and services. The provision of such facilities extends outwards from the central points, at which growth is usually concentrated, to the smaller communities with less developed traffic patterns. Programme justification then becomes related more to the achievement of social mobility, rather than only to the need for central points on established routes.

During December 1978 the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) undertook its sixth and final season of long-range airborne radio echo sounding (RES) and magnetometry in Antarctica in cooperation with the US National Science Foundation Division of Polar Programmes (NSF-DPP) and the Electromagnetics Institute of the Technical University of Denmark (TUD). The 1978–79 season (DF–79) was part of a long-term programme of glaciological and geophysical investigation of the Antarctic ice sheet (Drewry and Meldrum 1978a; 1978b). The broad aims have been to extend a 100-km grid network over Antarctica for a study of surface form, thickness, internal structure, rheology, thermodynamics, electrical properties, basal conditions and processes, and sub-ice geology.

One must suppose that even before Melville transformed the true story of an unusually lightcoloured Sperm Whale named Mocha Dick into his epic novel, Moby Dick, and certainly afterwards, whalers and zoologists working in the whaling industry have noted that pronounced morphological differences often exist among whales of the same species and stock (Lillie, 1915; Matthews, 1937; Pike, 1953). During the past 15 years, scientists studying living whales have commented on individuals with odd marks, scars, pigmentation patterns or albinism, deformities, algal films or the shape and position of external features such as the dorsal fin.

The text of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which was adopted at the close of a diplomatic conference at Canberra on 21 May 1980, is reproduced elsewhere in this number of Polar Record (see p 383–95). The aim of this commentary is briefly to describe the purposes which the Convention was intended by its negotiators to fulfil, to indicate how those purposes are reflected in the text of the Convention, and to explain where the Convention will fit in the overall scheme of international Antarctic conservation agreements that have come into being over the last 50 years.

During April–May 1980 the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) and Norsk Polarinstitutt (NPI) conducted a joint programme of radio echo sounding (RES) in Svalbard. The principal aims were to evaluate the performance of SPRI 60 MHz echo sounding equipment of Svalbard glaciers, to measure ice thickness over a wide range of conditions, and to investigate specific glaciers which are the focus of current glaciological studies.

The second year of the three-year programme of geological investigations in eastern North Greenland has been successfully completed by the Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse (GGU) [Geological Survey of Greenland], in close cooperation, for logistic purposes, with the Geodætiske Institute (GI) [Danish Geodetic Institute] and the Royal Danish Air Force. This programme is the culmination of many years’ planning and the results from it are to be used in the compilation of sheet 8 of the 1:500 000 Greenland geological and Quaternary map series (Watt, 1976), in addition to more detailed maps of specific areas at 1: 100 000.

Past forecasts by geologists of potentially large oil and natural gas reserves in the North American Arctic (eg, Prudhoe Bay, the Mackenzie delta, and the Canadian Arctic islands) are coming closer to reality. Results from Canmar (Canadian Marine Drilling Ltd of Calgary) drill ships working in the southern Beaufort Sea continue to support the prediction of considerable hydrocarbon deposits in this area. The most significant discovery, gas amounting to 0.48–0.50 trillion m3 [17–18 trillion ft3] was made by Panarctic Oils Limited in the Canadian High Arctic, in particular the Drake field off Melville Island and the surrounding region (Star Phoenix, 1980a). Panarctic Oils is a government-industry consortium; Petro-Canada owns 45 per cent of the shares and provides the bulk of the exploration budget.

The Polish Academy of Sciences supported two scientific expeditions to Antarctica during the austral summer, 1978–79: an expedition to H. Arctowski station on King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, and an expedition to A. B. Dobrowolski station at Bunger Oazis on Knox Coast, East Antarctica.

Five main British Antarctic Survey stations were occupied throughout the year: Faraday and Halley (the two geophysical observatories), Signy (the main biological station), Grytviken (a multidisciplinary sub-Antarctic station and centre for the Offshore Biological Programme) and Rothera (the centre for earth sciences programmes). During the 1979 winter, routine programmes were maintained by 72 men who also made preparations for the forthcoming summer season. The two BAS ships, RRS John Biscoe and RRS Bransfield, with assistance from two Twin Otter aircraft relieved the stations, as usual, and assisted summer field workers. Valuable assistance was also given by the ice-patrol ship, HMS Endurance. John Biscoearrived in the Antarctic late in the season, having been delayed while her refit was completed. (The ship, which has been in continuous service since 1965, had undergone major repairs and modifications to ensure her continued suitability for Antarctic service and to increase her usefulness as a floating laboratory.) All stations were relieved without difficulty, but, because of this season's tight shipping schedules, Rothera was not reached by sea until the end of March 1980, although it had been relieved by air at the beginning of January. At Halley, the season was overshadowed by the death of the base commander, Miles Mosley, in an accident involving one of the aircraft. A second man was injured but made a complete recovery. At Faraday, good progress was made with the programme of modernization. Part of the main building was demolished and replaced by a new extension, and a desalination plant and new inflatable fuel tank were brought into use.

The 1979 Cambridge Spitsbergen expedition consisted of 13 members and was in the field from mid-June to late August. An advance party of seven left England on 18 June, arrived in Longyearbyen by scheduled flight, and then continued to the base building ‘Mexico’ in Ny-Alesund by chartered Cessna 185. The members were: W. B. Harland (expedition leader, geologist), P. Waddams (geologist), M. F.Chantrey (boat captain), S. G. Chandler (engineer), A. S. D. McCracken, T. D. Parker and J. H. Nebelsick (geological assistants)