Plateau Station
| Summary | |||||||||||
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| Airport type | skiway | ||||||||||
| Operator | US Navy and National Science Foundation | ||||||||||
| Serves | Plateau Station | ||||||||||
| Location | Queen Maud Land, Antarctica | ||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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Coordinates: 79°15′03″S 40°33′38″E / 79.25082°S 40.56042°E
Plateau Station is an inactive American research and South Pole—Queen Maud Land Traverse support base on the central Antarctic Plateau. Construction on the site started on December 13, 1965, and the first traverse team (named SPQML II) arrived in early 1966. The base was in continuous use until January 29, 1969, when it was closed but mothballed for future use, and was the most remote and coldest of any United States stations on the continent. It is also the site for the world's coldest measured average temperature for a month, recorded in July 1968, at −99.8 °F (−73.2 °C).
The station was operated and staffed by the National Science Foundation and United States Navy. A select team of four scientists and four navy personnel were on constant duty at the station, which was under the command of a naval medical doctor. Originally designed for two years of service, it was in use for three years.
Until the Fuji Dome Station opened in 1995, it was the outpost at the highest altitude at 3,624 metres (11,890 ft) above sea level. The effective altitude, due to polar circulation vortex was in excess of 4,000 metres (13,123 ft), making the base a useful location for high-altitude research. Although the cold never reached the record set at Vostok Station, the average temperature was consistently lower.
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