Reprieve for Australian sub-Antarctic island station

Australia's permanent sub-Antarctic research base at World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island has won a reprieve from closure and will instead get a multi-million dollar revamp, the government said Friday, in a boost for science. The Australian Antarctic Division announced in September the station on the island -- which lies in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica -- would shut after almost seven decades due to environmental contamination concerns and ageing infrastructure. "The new station will be the most advanced of its type in the Southern Ocean, capable of supporting the full range of priority activities we have conducted in the past and to ensure a permanent and recurring year round presence," he said.

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