Occupation
Marie Byrd Land hosted the Operation Deep Freeze base Byrd Station (NBY; originally at 80°S, 120°W, rebuilt at 80°S, 119°W), beginning in 1957, in the hinterland of Bakutis Coast. Byrd Station was the only major base in the interior of West Antarctica for many years. In 1968, the first ice core to fully penetrate the Antarctic Ice Sheet was drilled here. The year-round station was abandoned in 1972, and after operating for years as a temporary summer encampment, Byrd Surface Camp, Byrd Station was reopened by the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) in 2009-2010 to support operations in northern West Antarctica.
Byrd Station provided a template for the doomed Antarctic base in the horror movie John Carpenter's The Thing.
In 1998-1999, a camp was operated at the Ford Ranges (FRD) in western Marie Byrd Land, supporting a part of a United States Antarctic Program (USAP) airborne survey initiated by UCSB and supported by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.
In 2004-05, a large camp, Thwaites (THW) was established by the USAP 150 km (93 mi) north of NBY, in order to support a large airborne geophysical survey of eastern Marie Byrd Land by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.
In 2006, a major encampment, WAIS Divide (WSD) was established on the divide between the Ross Sea Embayment and the Amundsen Sea Embayment, in easternmost Marie Byrd Land, in order to drill a high resolution ice core over the following three years.
On Ruppert Coast of Marie Byrd Land is the Russian station Russkaya, which was occupied 1980-1990 and is also used as a summer-only station.
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