Thread: Whats going on in Antarctica ?

Thanks Bob! Great of Elaine to reply.

Survival School....so that explains what these people are doing!



And this thread is prompting me to get some of my 10,000+ (yes, 10,000) Antarctic photos online....

Here's one for your viewing pleasure. Taken out of the cockpit window at 16,000 feet just (true) north of the crater of Mt Erebus looking south down towards McMurdo Station. Mactown as it's known is at the end of the long peninsula (~50 kms away from the summit). The road under discussion in this thread is just visible leading left from the end of the peninsula to the white splodge - which is the Willy Field Skiway. Turn 90 degrees and head away from the camera and you can see the Pegasus "Runway" of compressed snow. They stand out so much as the disturbed snow has a different crystalline structure than the old snow and thus has a higher albedo - or light reflectivity.

Just to the right of the end of the Peninsula, you can see the Ice Runway that is build most years on the sea ice in front of station - budget permitting. It's close to station, but the sea ice becomes too weak around xmas time so ops move to Pegasus. The ice is thick enough - around 2 metres - but there are limits to how long you can leave aircraft parked there as it will start to bow as sea ice is surprisingly elastic... You can see the pale blue colour close to the coast where it's started to weaken - from the heat of the land. It usually becomes inaccessible, then a big blow will come overnight and you wake up in the morning and it's gone! The coast of the permanent ice shelf (several hundred metres thick and not seasonal) is roughly just around the left side of the tip of the peninsula (as per the google earth satellite pic showing open water)



Gallery of a few more of my pics here

I wintered over at Casey 1998. Visited Davis and a Russian base called Mirny.

Didn't see any military weapons of any sort anywhere.