McMurdo Season 6 - Day 31
Current Weather 12F Sunny and Calm
Today's installment is photos of a Pressure Ridge trip that I went on last week. The trip leader was Paula, but you won't see her in any of these photos because she was leading the hike and checking for safe conditions and any new surface cracks. I on the other hand was chosen to be the tail, and making sure that the number of people that we started with, was the number that we ended with.
So the Pressure Ridges, what are they? Well it is the ice in front of Scott Base where the annual sea ice (10 feet thick) is getting squeezed between Ross Island and the Ross Ice Shelf (100's of feet thick). The ice shelf is moving north and it crunches the sea ice. This area has many cracks in the ice and it is a good area to find seals very early in the season. This sea ice edge is 30 or 40 miles north of McMurdo right now, but the seals travel south coming up in these cracks from time to time trying to get away from the ice edge and from predators. Once they find a safe area they stay near by and have their pups.
We get to go walking around this area early in the season before the real melt begins. So it is an interesting area because of the ice formations, and we get to be up close with the seals and seal pups.
Enjoy lots of photos, and less blathering.
I really liked this formation. It is splitting from the compression upward with a view of Castle Rock and Mount Erebus in the background.
Beth, I tried to get the seals to move so that they would be in the proper lighting, but they wouldn't listen. I will try to go on another trip at a different time of the day to get some better lighting.
Look I didn't loose anyone.
You can see in the background Scott Base.
Here you can get some perspective of the scale of the ice features.
And don't fall in the crack.
I really liked the silhouette shadows in this photo.
That is the first good wildlife of the season for me. Thanks for checking it out.
R.J.
Today's installment is photos of a Pressure Ridge trip that I went on last week. The trip leader was Paula, but you won't see her in any of these photos because she was leading the hike and checking for safe conditions and any new surface cracks. I on the other hand was chosen to be the tail, and making sure that the number of people that we started with, was the number that we ended with.
So the Pressure Ridges, what are they? Well it is the ice in front of Scott Base where the annual sea ice (10 feet thick) is getting squeezed between Ross Island and the Ross Ice Shelf (100's of feet thick). The ice shelf is moving north and it crunches the sea ice. This area has many cracks in the ice and it is a good area to find seals very early in the season. This sea ice edge is 30 or 40 miles north of McMurdo right now, but the seals travel south coming up in these cracks from time to time trying to get away from the ice edge and from predators. Once they find a safe area they stay near by and have their pups.
We get to go walking around this area early in the season before the real melt begins. So it is an interesting area because of the ice formations, and we get to be up close with the seals and seal pups.
Enjoy lots of photos, and less blathering.
I really liked this formation. It is splitting from the compression upward with a view of Castle Rock and Mount Erebus in the background.
Beth, I tried to get the seals to move so that they would be in the proper lighting, but they wouldn't listen. I will try to go on another trip at a different time of the day to get some better lighting.
Look I didn't loose anyone.
You can see in the background Scott Base.
Here you can get some perspective of the scale of the ice features.
And don't fall in the crack.
I really liked the silhouette shadows in this photo.
That is the first good wildlife of the season for me. Thanks for checking it out.
R.J.
posted by R.J. at 1:39 AM
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