A few weeks ago, we focussed our image of the week on very particular parts of Antarctica, which display blue ice at the surface. Today we would like to put the spotlight on an even more extreme chromatic phenomenon : the Fyndið ísjaki Brandari (should be pronounced “/fɪːntɪð/ˈiːsjacɪ /ˈprantaːrɪ/“, even though a bit of phonetics never …[Read More]
So far this blog has published many pictures of current polar field work campaigns. Today, we would like to take you back to Antarctic expeditions during the 1960s. The photos presented in this post date back from the Belgian-Dutch Antarctic field campaigns of 1964-1966. The first picture shows Ken Blaiklock (red overalls) with a Belgian surveyor. …[Read More]
Many glaciologists look forward to going on fieldtrips and then, once they are back, they make us dream by posting breathtaking photos (like THIS or THIS or THIS). However, the reality of the field can sometimes be very different…. The picture illustrates how difficult it can be to work on sea ice when the snow on …[Read More]
The blue ice areas of Antarctica are one of the most fascinating parts of the ice sheet. In these regions, snowfall is so low that the ice is laid bare by the wind and consequently sublimates. This exposes beautiful, blue ice surfaces, like an ocean frozen in time. This picture was taken at a site …[Read More]
December 2014, 11:50 p.m., the sun licks the horizon on Derwael ice rise; It’s time to go back to the tent … The shot was taken during the 2014 IceCon Field campaign in East Antarctica (read Brice’s blog post telllling about his first journey to Antarctica). Here, you can also read about the 2016 field season of …[Read More]
Christmas greetings from people at Rothera Research Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica. Rothera, which is the British Antarctic Survey’s largest base in Antarctica, is a centre for marine biology and gateway for getting scientists into their deep field camps. Christmas Day is a regular working day for the staff of around 90. However the chefs will …[Read More]
My Antarctic adventure started from Punta Arenas at the bottom of Chile, opposite Tierra del Fuego, on New Years Eve 2014 after a long journey from Heathrow via São Paulo and Santiago. Punta Arenas Punta Arenas is where Shackleton organised the rescue of his men from Elephant Island after his voyage to South Georgia in …[Read More]
In the morning on the 19th of May, we – the Arctic Circle Traverse 2015 – found ourselves in a great dilemma; to stay or to go? On our check-in conversation with the KISS crew, we were informed that an east front from Kulusuk was expected to hit our location up on the ice sheet …[Read More]
How do you get a hot water drill onto an ice sheet? The Subglacial Access and Fast Ice Research Experiment (SAFIRE) uses a hot water drill to directly access and observe the physical and geothermal properties where the ice meets rock or sediment at the glacier-bed interface. Here, SAFIRE principal investigator Bryn Hubbard and post-doc …[Read More]
In early April 2015, a small team of 2 Belgian and 2 French researchers went to Svalbard. The goal? Testing new methods to measure sea-ice thickness and ice algal biomass, but also measuring greenhouse gases in the sea ice in relation with the ‘STeP’ (Storfjorden Polynya multidisciplinary study) campaign. With funding from the French Polar …[Read More]
