Metso delivered three Lokotrack crushing and screening plants retrofitted for extreme cold for the reconstruction of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) McMurdo research station in Antarctica. The equipment enables crushing in temperatures as low as -40 °C.
McMurdo Station, located on an island in the Ross Sea, is the U.S. Antarctic Program’s logistics hub and the largest of the three stations that the U.S. operates in Antarctica. McMurdo is being rebuilt under the Antarctic Infrastructure and Modernization for Science (AIMS) project, a long-range initiative to upgrade the station to make it logistically and energy efficient.
Metso’ equipment will be used for 3 years in crushing the ground materials for the new buildings. All in all, this will amount to more than 126,000 cubic meters of aggregates.
In the extreme conditions of Antarctica, the equipment can only be used during the Southern Hemisphere summer, which lasts from October to April. The hard basalt to be crushed will come from an area near the station. The Lokotrack equipment was procured by Leidos, the NSF’s prime contractor for the Antarctic Support Contract, as well as the AIMS project. The seller was Wagner Equipment, a Metso distributor in the United States. For more, visit www.metso.com.