by National Science Foundation

The Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Center has replaced McMurdo Station's outdated laboratories, Eklund Biological Center (EBC) and Thiel Earth Science Laboratory (TESL). Designed to afford scientists better working conditions and access to modern technology, the center facilitates cooperative research among scientists from other countries.

Planning for the Crary Center began in 1984, when the National Science Foundation (NSF) contracted with the Pacific Division of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (PACDIV) in Honolulu, Hawaii, for design services. PACDIV selected the CJS Group Architects Ltd., to survey the existing science facilities at McMurdo Station, develop design criteria with NSF managers, work with the polar science community to ensure that major science requirements were met, and design the structure. Their efforts resulted in a design for a modern science facility that not only will withstand the rigors of the polar environment but also will provide maximum flexibility for the changes that the U.S. antarctic science program may take in the future.

The 4,230-square-meter center consists of five "pods" and was built in three phases between 1987 and 1993. Phase I includes a two-story core pod and the biology pod. On the first floor of the core pod are management offices, special equipment rooms, storage rooms, and a receiving and staging area; the second floor contains a telescience room, computer facility, conference room, multi-purpose space, and lounge. In the telescience room are an antartic Geographic Information System and equipment for the first phase of the Antarctic Meteorological Research Center (AMRC), which includes a computer system for processing data from the TeraScan satellite. The biology pod contains two environmental monitoring laboratories, five general-use laboratories, one radioistope laboratory, two microbiology laboratories, four freezers, four environmental rooms, a chemical storage room, storage and preparation rooms, field-party staging area, and 10 offices.

Phase II, completed in 1992, houses the earth sciences pod and atmospheric sciences pod. The earth sciences pod contains a sorting and storage room, rough- cut and thin-sectioning rooms, instrument room/laboratory, electronics shop, common work area, three freezers for processing ice and snow samples, and six offices. The electronic shop contains the Mt. Erebus Volcano Observatory. The atmospheric includes an assembly and test area, two environmental laboratories, electronics workshop, Faraday cage, photographic darkroom, receiving and recording area, six offices, and access through the roof to accommodate such instruments as lidars.

In Phase III (completed in October 1993) are an aquarium and dive locker. The aquarium has a holding tank room, two laboratories, and a storage room. The dive locker contains an air compressor with high-pressure bank and tank-fill bin, tank storage, workshop, equipment shower/drying room with wash sink, and individual storage lockers.

The Crary center primarily supports NSF-funded researchers, four research centers/labs (two Environ- mental Monitoring Laboratories, a Snow and Ice Mechanics Laboratory, an Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, and the Mt. Erebus Volcano Observatory), the GIS system, and a local area network (LAN). Discussions are also underway for installation of a very-long base-line interferometry telescope. A ground station for Radarsat, a synthetic aperture radar that can image the surface of the antarctic ice sheet with great precision, was under construction in late 1994.