SPANISH ANTARCTIC BASE “GABRIEL DE CASTILLA” OPERATING AT FULL CAPACITY

Remodelling work on Spanish Antarctic Base “Gabriel de Castilla” (Deception Island) finished on 4th December last. The five members of the Central Works Command (Madrid) have concluded the installation of the module devoted to the living area. In its 125 square metres are located the living-dining room, the kitchen, the boiler room, the laundry, the Base Commander’s office, the meeting room and the transmission room. In the 2008-09 campaign, a new module was constructed, a twin of the previous one, where the dormitories that shared space with the living area in the former Spanish Antarctic Base configuration have been moved. All the work has been carried out while maintaining the base operational and without interrupting its scientific activity.

Currently, after the remodelling has been completed, Base “Gabriel de Castilla” can accommodate, in the dormitory module, between 24 and 28 people in habitability conditions very superior to those existing to date. The remainder of the installations has not suffered any changes, with the only pending work remaining being the new entrance hall that joins the two dormitory and living modules.

The Spanish Antarctic Base opening took place on 12th November last, a month earlier than its usual date with the aim of finishing the remodelling before the arrival of the initial teams of scientists. The work has been jointly financed with the Ministry of Science and Innovation, as the Army contributed the draft project, technical management, the new module and the personnel necessary for its set-up, along with the related costs.

Planning for the remodelling began in 2007, and coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Spanish Antarctic Base’s opening, its inauguration is scheduled for the coming week, by a delegation from both ministries led by Lieutenant General Ignacio Martín Villalaín, Second Chief of the Army Staff, and Mr. José Ignacio Doncel Morales, Sub-director General of the Ministry of Science and Innovation’s Sub-directorate on Scientific and Technological Infrastructures.
As well, during this campaign an aim is obtaining Environmental Quality Certification ISO 14001, which would successfully complete the work undertaken in previous missions in implementing an Environmental Quality Plan, which would mean the culmination of a continuous effort by base personnel to make it a model in environmental management. To this end, in recent days, Army Infrastructure Directorate personnel have undertaken the internal audit prior to this certification.

On 2nd December last the Oceanographic Research Ship “Las Palmas”, reached port on Deception Island with new researchers, as at present being undertaken are the projects scheduled by the University of Cádiz Faculty of Science, the University of Granada’s Andalusian Institute of Geophysics, the University of Extremadura Faculty of Science and the Environmental Division of the Canary Island Technology and Renewable Energy Institute (ITER). Base “Gabriel de Castilla” accommodates at this time 22 people, 11 civilians and 11 military personnel.

Spanish Antarctic Base "Gabriel de Castilla" was inaugurated in 1989 and along with Spanish Antarctic Base "Juan Carlos I" they are the two sites that Spain has on the frozen continent. In this season, 113 scientists will pass through the two bases in order to carry out 10 research projects and 13 complementary actions on various aspects such as volcanic surveillance, astrobiology, geology or ecology, carried out by the hands of Spanish, English, Japanese, Argentinean and German scientists. The Army also will undertake its own research in the fields of transmissions, cold resistant material and machine maintenance in extreme weather conditions.

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