At the end of Oct. 2018, members of China's 35th Antarctic expedition gathered in Shanghai from all directions, ready to set out. On the morning of Nov. 2, 2018, the national anthem of the People's Republic of China was played at the dock of China's polar research base, and a short and solemn see-off ceremony was held for the 35th Antarctic expedition team, with guests from the Polar Research Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources of PRC, China’s Polar Research Center, National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Railway Construction Engineering Group and Shanghai Oceanic Bureau, etc. At 10 a.m., members of the 35th Antarctic expedition team shook hands for farewells with relatives and guests attending the ceremony. With the sound of the sirens, China’s research icebreaker Xuelong, slowly moved out of the dock towards the southernmost ocean and land, starting a 162-day expedition. Eighteen teachers and students from Tongji University’s College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics and School of Ocean and Earth Science, including professor Li Rongxing, Xie Huan, Wang Rujian, Hao Tong, associate professor Feng Tiantian, Liu Shijie and doctor Tian Yixiang, attended the see-off ceremony.
The expedition is the first Antarctic expedition after the establishment of the Ministry of Natural Resources of People’s Republic of China. It’s reported that through multidisciplinary joint observation, by making full use of different platforms of ship base, ice base, ocean base, land base, sky base, and station base, the expedition will serve for national major infrastructure projects, such as the construction of a new station on Enksburg Island, the second stage of Taishan station, national Antarctic monitoring network construction, marine environmental protection investigation, station environment improvement, and some other ordinary work of common security, goods transportation, engineering construction, fixed wing aircraft inspection and international cooperation, etc.
Selected by the Ministry of Natural Resources of People’s Republic of China, associate professor Qiao Gang from College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Tongji University, participates in the expedition, mainly in charge of field mapping and remote sensing survey job of the new airport runway on ice sheet at Zhongshan station. Teng Yuyang from School of Ocean and Earth Science is responsible for the task of obtaining sediment samples from climate-sensitive areas in the Ross and Amundsen seas. Faculties and students from eight different colleges of Tongji University are engaged in polar scientific research, and currently, an Institute of Tri-pole Science of Tongji University is under construction. Taking advantage of its comprehensive advantage in fields of remote sensing, ocean, environment, engineering, policy, etc., Tongji University serves for the cause of China's polar scientific research, and makes contribution to China's polar research and frontier research.
