Nature 201, 176 - 177 (11 January 1964); doi:10.1038/201176b0

Evidence from Chemical Diffusion of a Climatic Change in the McMurdo Dry Valleys 1,200 Years Ago

A. T. WILSON

Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand.

LAKE VANDA (77° 35' S., 161° 39' E.) is 5 miles long, 1 mile wide and occupies the lowest part of the Wright Valley, an ice-free valley in Victoria Land, Antarctica. This lake has no outflow and is supplied from the east with melt water from the Wilson Piedmont Glacier via the 18-mile-long Onyx River. This River, under present climatic conditions, flows for only about sixty days every summer. The lake is 218 ft. deep, but there are old lake-levels suggesting that the lake was 370 ft. deep at some time in the past. In the summer of 1960–61 Armitage and House discovered that the bottom waters are warm and highly saline¹.

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2. Wilson, A. T. , and Wellman, H. W. , Nature, 196, 1171 (1962). | ISI |
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