Saturday 1st December After a final difficult day striking camp and manhauling everything out to the new depot and skiway on Friday, we were airlifted out and moved to Fossil Bluff, where there is a small hut and a fuel depot. We joined Andy and Rob, who are responsible for maintaining the hut (Bluebell Cottage) […]
Part 8: Fossil Bluff Read More »
Wednesday 28th November Today we took all but essential living kit (leaving behind the pyramid tent, P-bags, tent box, pots box, medical box and 1 manfood box) out to the depot. I had two sledges with my orange BAS kitbag, rucksack, 1 rock box, and the red geology trunk. So a reasonable load, perhaps slightly
Part 7: Move to Fossil Bluff Read More »
Friday 23rd November It has been an exciting few days as we near the end of our third week. Yesterday we had a good, fruitful day in Unnamed Valley and today we walked right to the head of Ablation Valley. We climbed to the top of The Mound, a large bedrock hump in the middle
Part 6: Fieldwork III Read More »
Thursday 15th November Today, like yesterday, was relatively warm, wet, windy, overcast and foggy. Pretty miserable weather with a cold wet wind and snow. I prefer it when it is colder but dry – this temperature (-03°C, wet, humid), is most unpleasant. Like an English winter!
Part 5: Fieldwork II Read More »
Friday 9th November And so fieldwork begins. Today we have had exceptionally good weather. -08°C, clear, sunny, no wind. Yesterday was rather windier with many snow snakes that I spent ages (rather unsuccessfully) trying to photograph.
Part 4: Initial Fieldwork Read More »
Monday 5th November We were dropped into Ablation Valley in the afternoon following a morning of waiting for a weather window. We finally departed around 4 pm following the arrival of the Dash-7 at 3:01 pm local time.
Part 3: Deployment to Ablation Point Massif Read More »
Thursday 1st November Today our training for deep field began in earnest. We were given a more extended tour, taught how to safely drive skidoos, how to avoid being eaten by aeroplane propellers (Rothera is a busy airport with one of the few gravel strip runways in the area), how to use the items in
Part 2: Training and preparation Read More »
Introducing the Antarctic Diaries. This series of blog articles is about my exploits at Rothera and Alexander Island with Michael Hambrey, a professor at Aberystwyth University.
Part 1: Arrival at Rothera Read More »
I am on Twitter (@AntarcticGlacie). And so are many other field-based scientists. When I started using the hashtag #FieldPhotoFriday, so many people joined in that I had to storify it. We had photographs capturing a whole gamut of field experiences from a range of sciences. The places people go and what they get up to
The Arctic’s sea ice extent reached an all-time low in September 2012, with the smallest recorded extent since satellite observations began. At 3.42 million square kilometres, it may still sound large, but this small extent of Arctic sea ice could have profound long-term consequences, and it follows a long trend of low sea ice conditions.
