Davis Station, commonly called Davis, is one of three permanent bases and research outposts in Antarctica managed by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD). Davis is situated on the coast of Cooperation Sea in Princess Elizabeth Land, Ingrid Christensen Coast in the Australian Antarctic Territory, a territory claimed by Australia. Davis lies in an Antarctic oasis, a mostly ice-free area known as the Vestfold Hills.
Davis was named in honour of Captain John King Davis.
Davis was listed on the Register of the National Estate on 26 October 1999 and has been included on the Commonwealth Heritage List as an indicative place, due to the condition of buildings and structures that varies from no longer exists/demolished due to poor condition, through to very good condition.
Purpose
Davis is a base for scientific research programs including the study of viruses and bacteria using molecular genetic techniques in glacial lakes, the impact of environmental change and pollution on Antarctic marine ecosystems, atmospheric research, measuring algae growth as an important food source for tiny marine herbivores such as zooplankton, the impact of climate change, including the increasing carbon dioxide concentrations on marine microbes and, together with researchers at Casey, the study of the Law Dome, the bedrock geology and structure of the East Antarctic ice sheet.
History
The first recorded sighting of the coastline now occupied by Davis Station was on 9 February 1931, during the second British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) voyage aboard Discovery. Sir Douglas Mawson and Flight Lieutenant Stuart Campbell sighted the Antarctic continent from a seaplane and named the high land to the southeast Princess Elizabeth Land.
The first recorded landing in the region was made in 1935 by the Norwegian whaler Captain Klarius Mikkelsen in the vessel Thorshavn. Mikkelsen named the hills after the Vestfold province of Norway, on the western side of Oslo Fjord, which he considered it resembled, and where the Christensen company's headquarters was located, at the town of Sandefjord.
On 20 February 1935, together with his wife and seven crew members (including the ship's dentist, Lief Sørsdal), Mikkelsen landed in a small bay on an unnamed island at the northern end of the Vestfold Hills. Mrs Caroline Mikkelsen was the first woman to set foot on the Antarctic continent and the party raised the Norwegian flag on an improvised flagpole and built a rock cairn to mark the site. This cairn was found by members of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) in 1960 but was lost for many years until its rediscovery in 1995. (As an interesting aside, Caroline Mikkelsen was still living and received word of the rediscovery of the original flagpole.) Captain Mikkelsen named the area "Ingrid Christensen Land" after the wife of the ship's owner, Lars Christensen. Mrs Christensen was later to land in Antarctica herself - on 30 January 1937, at Scullin Monolith (which the Norwegians called Klarius Mikkelsen Mountain).
The Thorshavn and Klarius Mikkelsen, along with Lars Christensen, were back in the Vestfold Hills area in the 1936–37 summer. An area to the immediate north of the Vestfold Hills was used as a take-off and landing area for a seaplane, from which oblique aerial photos were taken for mapping purposes. The first map of the Vestfold Hills, derived from this imagery, was published after World War II.
The next recorded visitors to the area were the American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and his Australian aircraft pilot and observer Sir Hubert Wilkins, in Ellsworth's ship Wyatt Earp. Despite Wilkins' protestations that Mawson had already claimed the area for Australia, Ellsworth planned to lodge a counter claim for America. In response to this, Wilkins took pre-emptive action and made two landings. The first was on one of the Rauer Islands, at 68° 46' South, 77° 50' East on 8 January 1939, and the second on a rocky outcrop at 68° 22' South 70° 33' East on 11 January 1939. At both of these locations he deposited decrees recognising Australia's right to ". . . administrate . . . those parts of His Majesty's dominions in the Antarctic Seas". Along with the decree he left a copy of the famous Australian geographical magazine 'Walkabout". Of three such sites, only the northern cairn has been located and hence the name "Walkabout Rocks".
During the U.S. Antarctic explorations that formed a part of "Operation Highjump" in 1947, USS Currituck visited the area, but no landing took place. As part of Operation Highjump, the Vestfolds and surrounding area were extensively photographed from the air.