We’ve had a couple of trips recently to deploy instruments and make measurements at the edge of the multiyear ice (more than 6 metres thick) and the annual ice growing over the ocean. Our site is about 30 kilometres away from Scott Base where the ice breaker cut a channel in January to let the fuel tanker get in to unload at McMurdo station.
The first trip was very interesting: a beautiful calm day with gorgeous low light colours, and that anticipation of being the first people to see what’s out there. There were old skidoo tracks from the summer along the edge of the Tanker Channel but the fresh ice was like a canvas with just the under-painting done. We made our marks, drilled holes, placed instruments, collected data all the while marvelling at things that are harder to measure; like the frost flowers that had grown on the surface like small corals all about the same distance apart (keep together, don’t get too far away); like the finger jointing where two pancake ice rafts had joined together, the lighting to the north and over Mount Erebus. The tanker channel ice was over 80cm thick (enough to drive a Hagglünds on – but we didn’t!) and the really new ice that had formed after the last strong wind had blown the previous cover out was over 30cm. I’d never walked on such relatively thin ice before down here (a new experience) and it was getting thicker quite fast as we found on our 2nd trip. Snow had then drifted over the flowers and the finger knitting, it was darker under moon and stars but it was still a very special feeling to be on the edge of our Antarctic world.
The photo shows the frost flowers on the young ice with the glow from the sun below the horizon to the north.