Antarctica Time Zones

Time Zones of Antarctica

On 2009-10-18 02:00, the time zone for Casey Station changed from UTC+8 to UTC+11. The time zone for Davis Station changed from UTC+7 to UTC+5, and the time zone for Mawson Station from UTC+6 to UTC+5. On 2010-03-05 02:00, Casey Station changed back to UTC+8. Davis changed back to UTC+7 on 2010-03-11 01:00. Mawson remains at UTC+5 for now. Steffen Thorsen reports that these changes may be made annually in the future, but it's not definite. The reason for the changes is to comport with current operational schedules from the Australian supply bases.

Rules currently in force

Station	Position	Standard	DST	Duration of DST	Zone Name
Casey, Australia	66° 17' S., 110° 32' E.	UTC+8	UTC+8		Antarctica/Casey
Davis, Australia	68° 35' S., 77° 59' E.	UTC+7	UTC+7		Antarctica/Davis
Dumont-d'Urville, France	66° 40' S., 140° 1' E.	UTC+10	UTC+10		Antarctica/DumontDUrville
Mawson, Australia	67° 36' S., 62° 53' E.	UTC+5	UTC+5		Antarctica/Mawson
McMurdo, USA Amundsen-Scott, USA	77° 51' S., 166° 37' E. 90° 0'S.	UTC+12	UTC+13	From the first Sunday in October at 02:00 to the third Sunday in March at 02:00	Antarctica/McMurdo
Palmer, USA	64° 58' S., 64° 0' W.	UTC-4	UTC-3	From the second Saturday in October at 24:00 to the second Saturday in March at 24:00	Antarctica/Palmer
Syowa and all other Japanese bases	69° 0' S., 39° 35' E.	UTC+3	UTC+3		Antarctica/Syowa

There are other active stations in Antarctica. We don't know what time they observe.

Time zone history

Source: This information was adapted from the tz database. Zone names come from that database. The names don't necessarily match any names used in the "real world".

Find the Zone Name in the table above. Then use this table to find the Rule and Standard Time for the given time and date.
Zone Name	Rule	Standard Time	Effective Dates
Antarctica/Casey	Standard	UTC+8	1969 to 2009-10-18 02:00
Antarctica/Davis	Standard	UTC+7	1957-01-13 to 1964-11, 1969-02 to 2009-10-18 02:00
Antarctica/DumontDUrville	Standard	UTC+10	1947 to 1952-01-14, 1956-11 to present
Antarctica/Mawson	Standard	UTC+6	1954-02-13 to 2009-10-18 02:00
Antarctica/McMurdo	NZAQ	UTC+12	1956 to present
Antarctica/Palmer	ArgAQ	UTC-4	1965 to 1969-10-05
	ArgAQ	UTC-3	1969-10-06 to 1982-05
	ChileAQ	UTC-4	1982-05 to present
Antarctica/Syowa	Standard	UTC+3	1957-01-29 to present

Apply the Rule, using the Standard Time for the given time and place.
Rule	Years	Description
Standard	All	Standard Time with no DST
ArgAQ	Standard Time, with DST = Standard Time + 1:00 during the following periods:
	1964-10 to 1966-03	from October 15 at 00:00 until March 1 at 00:00
	1966-10 to 1967-04	from October 15 at 00:00 until April 1 at 00:00
	1967-10 to 1969-04	from the first Sunday in October at 00:00 until the first Sunday in April at 00:00
	1974	from January 23 at 00:00 until May 1 at 00:00
	1974-10 to 1977-04	from the first Sunday in October at 00:00 until the first Sunday in April at 00:00
ChileAQ	Standard Time, with DST = Standard Time + 1:00 during the following periods:
	1982-10 to 1998-03	from the second Saturday in October at 24:00 until the second Saturday in March at 24:00
	1998-09 to 1999-04	from September 27 at 00:00 until April 4 at 00:00
	1999-10 to present	from the second Saturday in October at 24:00 until the second Saturday in March at 24:00
NZAQ	Standard Time, with DST = Standard Time + 1:00 during the following periods:
	1974-11 to 1975-02	from November 3 at 02:00 until February 23 at 02:00
	1975-10 to 1989-03	from the last Sunday in October at 02:00 until the first Sunday in March at 02:00
	1989-10 to 1990-03	from October 8 at 02:00 until March 18 at 02:00
	1990-10 to present	from the first Sunday in October at 02:00 until the third Sunday in March at 02:00

Time zone names

Casey, Palmer, and McMurdo observe the standard time of their supply bases, which are in Western Australia, Chile, and New Zealand, respectively. Therefore, they use the same time zone names as those places. Palmer was on Argentine time until 1982-05.
The only names given for the time zones of Davis, Mawson, and Syowa are Davis Time, Mawson Time, and Syowa Time. These names were made up for the tz database. There may be more authentic names, but the tz database hasn't heard of them.
The Dumont-d'Urville time zone was called Port-Martin Time from 1947 to 1952, and Dumont-d'Urville Time from 1956 to the present. Again, these names were made up. The Port-Martin base, 50 km. from Dumont-d'Urville, operated from 1947 to 1952 and then burned down.

References:
COMNAP - Stations and Bases
Summary of the Peri-Antarctic Islands
Australian Antarctic Division
NIPR Antarctic Research Activities
Australian Antarctic Division

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