The nation's first ice-breaking vessel, the "Araon," has completed its mission of surveying a candidate site for a second South Korean research station in Antarctica.

The survey team arrived in Terra Nova Bay on Saturday and conducted three rounds of studies on a number of variables at the location, including temperature, wind, topography and atmospheric conditions.

The vessel’s chief scientist will make its final selection from the two candidate sites --- one in Cape Burks and the other in Terra Nova Bay --- by the end of March.

Afterwards, it will submit to the Antarctic Treaty Committee in April a report about the nation’s scientific base’s potential impacts on the region.

South Korea will begin building the station in Antarctica in 2012 if the committee approves the plan, as it is expected to do, by early next year.

The construction will be completed by 2014.