Thread: Antarctica and Tractors

Ref; Australian Antarctic Division research behind schedule after Aurora Australis diverted to help ice-bound ship - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The director of the Australian Antarctic Division, Tony Fleming, says the delay will affect research projects, other resupply missions and the budget.

Dr Fleming says the Aurora Australis will complete the resupply job at Casey Station before returning to Hobart.

"The incident has delayed our season so we need to do the resupply very quickly and get the vessel back to Hobart and turn around quite quickly to the next voyage," he said.

"I understand that the taxpayer shouldn't pay for this rescue mission so I'll do everything I can to recoup the costs."

The extra passengers will stay onboard during the resupply mission which is expected to take around five days.

Dr Fleming says while scientists are used to delays in Antarctica, there is a sense of frustration.

"The economic costs will be fuel and food and the charter costs and it's an ongoing operation," he said.

"So we don't know how long the operation will take but we'll calculate that when the ship gets back to Hobart."

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That's a photo from the 25th November 1956 of the Tucker Sno-cat 'Rock and Roll' and it's first collapsed crevasse snow bridge. "On the 25th we passed over the filled chasms safely enough, and after 14 miles thought that we were well on the way for a long run. Then, in a twinkling, a snow bridge fell away beneath 'Rock and Roll' leaving David Stratton and myself suspended in mid-air over an impressive chasm," The Crossing of Antarctica by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary.
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Ref; https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks...arctica-t03558

Sir Sidney Nolan, Antarctica 1964.


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Ref; Mountains on the Horizon (Day 79) | Blog | The Scott Expedition

Take a close look at the photo and you can see why Ben and Tarka were excited at the end of their day.



Distance to go: 610 Miles
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Geoff Wilson a vet has arrived at the South Pole, in his quest to raise monies for The McGrath Foundation.
The McGrath Foundation was co-founded by Jane and Glenn McGrath and was inspired by Jane’s personal experience with breast cancer.

The McGrath Foundation aims to raise money to place McGrath Breast Care Nurses in communities right across Australia and to increase breast awareness in young women.
To find out more about how you can help make a difference, please visit McGrath Foundation - McGrath Foundation > Home

Dr Geoff Wilson is pictured here with his Boobsled at the South Pole.
Geoff Wilson kited in on December 27th and will continue the crossing north to the coast.



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Ref; Polar News ExplorersWeb - South Pole arrivals and False Record Claims

A list of the hopefuls making it to the South Pole.

Make up your own mind.
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Ref; Antarctic Webcams — Australian Antarctic Division


Krill cam
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Ref; Downhill, a Dog-Leg and a Depot (Day 81) | Blog | The Scott Expedition

After trekking through a whiteout, via a GPS guided dogleg to miss the crevasses of the Shackleton Ice Falls, Ben and Tarka make it to their depot after spotting their marker, a spare ski sticking up with it's piece of material flapping in the wind.

The cloud finally lifted at 7pm as we were approaching our depot, and the view was glorious. We spotted the spare ski we'd left as a marker, defiantly standing upright in the wind with its fabric streamer flapping madly. I saw it first, and my excitement reminded me of going to the coast at Lyme Regis or Weymouth with my brother as a child, wondering who would spot the sea first. I can't tell you what a joy it is having scenery again after so many days on the featureless plateau, and I thought the Dominion Range looked stunning this evening as the last of the cloud rolled off it.

Taking bearings on Mount Darwin and Buckley Island ----- was a very special feeling indeed, and I couldn't help reflecting that the only other teams to have skied towards these landmarks were led by Sir Ernest Shackleton and Captain Scott. Not for the first time I felt like a bit of an imposter as I led us towards the depot; little old me who learnt to read a compass as a Scout. It's a special feeling being here, and tomorrow the Beardmore awaits...

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With so much going on with the Antarctic it's easy to miss a newsy blog, so better late than never.

Ref; Tas's Aurora Basin North Ice Coring Blog


Towing a stuck tractor - view from the kassbohrer.


First Basler flight, overflying the ABN skiway.


Main drill tent.

One of the Hobart scientists, Andrew, has got a laser spectrometer up and running and is measuring our first ice samples (for those interested, this device measures isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen in the water/ice, which can be interpreted as past temperatures). We are interested to see seasonal variations in the ice, especially in the shallow sections near the surface, as these will tell us more about the annual snowfall rate here.

The main core drilling continues, at 114 metres, and the team have been working hard to solve some technical problems with the drill. The firn air coring has now reached 102 metres and we are in the special zone called the ‘lock-in’ zone, where the ice is still porous enough to allow us to pump trapped air out, but the air itself is now isolated from the modern atmosphere. The point of this is that we can get very large samples of air that is decades old: much larger that can be obtained from bubbles in a relatively small ice core. Such large samples can be used to measure exotic gases like carbon-14 methane.

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