Diving Through The Sea Ice
In order to ensure the seasonal monitoring of Antarctic ecosystems and to capture processes happening over winter, the marine team plunged below the sea ice for the first time this month. The sea ice can be a dangerous medium to operate on and therefore great care must be taken when travelling and working on the sea ice. With these considerations in mind, it was hard to supress our excitement as we dressed in looking over our ice hole. The ice hole Photo credit- Ed Luke A significant proportion of ice has been held fast in Hangar Cove (to the north of the station) since May surviving over 60 knot winds across several particularly stormy periods! A station wide effort has been required for the marine team to continue scientific research in this new environment. Testing the sea ice depth is achieved by drilling and measuring the sea ice thickness at 200 m intervals on foot across a travel route. The location of each drill site is recorded with a GPS. The sea ice must be at least 30 cm