10:00 o’clock a.m., April 10, 2010-the “Snow Dragon” vessel carrying members of the 26th Chinese Antarctic Scientific Expedition moored at Shanghai Polar Research Institute of China’s domestic base wharf where a grand welcome ceremony was held, and leaders of the Ministry of Land and Resources, the State Oceanic Administration, Shanghai Municipal Government, and units of scientific expedition members as well as relevant relatives (500 persons in total) attended the welcome ceremony.

Doctor Zhao Bo from our institute’s No. 10 Office participated in Grove Mountain inland research. After tiding over harsh environments (like plateau and coldness) and dangers like ice crevasse, Doctor Zhao completed his research to Grove Mountain’s subglacial terrain and landform and returned in triumph. Vice Director of our Institute Zhang Xiaoguang and Vice Director Liu Xiaojun welcomed Mr. Zhao’s return on behalf of the Institute of Electronics.

The 26th Chinese Antarctic Scientific Expedition team consists of 249 members, and it started from Shanghai on October 11, 2009 and returned to Shanghai Port on April 10 this year, with total time span of 182 days. Meanwhile, the “Snow Dragon” polar research vessel sailed safely for more than 32,000 sea miles. Members of the expedition team came from 70 units all over China, and they successively completed missions like materials supply to Antarctic Great Wall Station and Zhongshan Station, personnel transportation, ocean research, and research station construction & reconstruction. They also firstly formed two research teams (Kunlun Station Team and Grove Mountain Team) to execute Antarctic inland scientific research.

During the Grove Mountain Inland Research period, Doctor Zhao leveraged our institute’s independently researched ice radar equipments to conduct geophysical exploration to subglacial landform and basin in Mason Peak and partial regions of Harding Mountain, and gained lots of high-quality measurement data, which offered scientific references for researching ice & snow sediment layer, upper ice cover thickness, and subglacial landform, and landforms like subglacial ancient sedimentary basin at the measurement site. It is also the first time for China to make use of the independently researched ice radar equipment for Antarctic inland ice cover detection test.

(Zhao Bo. No. 10 Office)