It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of global issues, and to provide an active presence in the Antarctic on behalf of the UK.

At the end of the war it was renamed the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) and full control passed to the Colonial Office.

[4] This proved controversial, and after the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee opposed the move[5] the plan was dropped.

[21] The larger Dash 7 undertakes regular shuttle flights between either Port Stanley Airport on the Falkland Islands, or Punta Arenas in Chile, and Rothera.

The smaller Twin Otters are equipped with skis for landing on snow and ice in remote areas, and operate out of the bases at Rothera, Fossil Bluff, Halley and Sky Blu.

The finding was made by a team of three BAS scientists: Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin.

The biggest eruption in the last 10,000 years, the volcanic ash was found deposited on the ice surface under the Hudson Mountains, close to Pine Island Glacier.

[23] In 2020, a team reported that emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica were nearly 20% more numerous than previously thought, with new discoveries made using satellite mapping technology.

[24][25] The BAS runs an online polar image collection which includes imagery of scientific research at the poles, logistics operations, and the continent and its wildlife.

The image collection is run by British cameraman and photographer Pete Bucktrout, who has visited the continent eleven times during his 24 years working for BAS.