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Members of 57th Antarctic expedition arriving in Petersburg.

Research was conducted under 67 scientific programs

ST. PETERSBURG, May 30 (Itar-Tass) — The Akademik Fedorov research expedition ship is returning from Antarctica to St. Petersburg on Wednesday from an expedition voyage. The ship is to be berthed at the container terminal of the Commercial Seaport, Director of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) of the Russian Federal Hydrometeorological and Environmental Monitoring Service (Rosgidromet) Ivan Frolov told Itar-Tass.

“Twenty-three experts of the scientific and research and production organisations of Rosgidromet, the Federal Agency for Subsoil Usage (Rosnedra), Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo), Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya), Russian State Register (Rosreyestr), Defence Ministry, Ministry of Education and Science have taken part in the 57th expedition,” he said. “Research was conducted under 67 scientific programs, including 18 – on board the Akademik Fedorov ship.”

The research institute director pointed out that “many of the observational materials and research reports were deposited in state storage funds by members of the 56th and 57th Russian Antarctic Expedition, the remaining team of which is coming to our city on the vessel.” After the review of these materials by the interdepartmental commission of experts, they will also be sent to the above funds for future use in a variety of fundamental and applied scientific research of the South polar region of the planet.

“The completion of drilling operations in the deep ice borehole at Vostok station, which ended on February 5, 2012 with the penetration into the relict waters of subglacial Lake Vostok was one of the best known programs of the 57th Russian Antarctic Expedition,” said Frolov. The Akademik Fedorov research vessel that is arriving in St. Petersburg carries in its refrigeration chamber ice cores of the final phase of the drilling and frozen samples of the lake water, which entered the drill string during its contact with the surface of the lake’s water layer. The samples will be taken to various research organisations of the country for laboratory analytical testing.