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The end of another safe and productive day of resupply operations. Again, a credit to all of those involved in the operation both onshore, on the ship and supporting from Hobart. Cargo operations continued from 0800hs this morning until 2030hs with a steady stream of containers discharged from the ship including equipment required on station for the station refuelling operation which we intend to commence in the coming week (weather permitting).
At present, weather forecasts indicate the chance of higher winds tomorrow that may affect our operations tomorrow afternoon but in the morning we anticipate further discharge of cargo and disembarkation of passengers for round-trip day visits to Casey station, including some awaiting flights on to Davis for whom the weather has remained uncooperative. Amongst them is Enrica who has been kind enough to submit background on her project here on the continent as she waits for the skies to clear.
'Over the next two months, the 2018-19 ICECAP airborne geophysics field team will be surveying the East Antarctic ice sheet, probing the over 3000 m-thick ice for its potential to contribute to global sea level change. They will be using a multitude of geophysical instruments installed onboard a Basler DC-3T, a modernized version of the classic WWII aircraft, operated by Kenn Borek Air.
The ICECAP program is part of a long-standing collaboration between the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), and the University of Tasmania's Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Collaborative Research Center. This season the ICECAP team will be operating from Australia's Davis Station, from where it will survey glaciers, subglacial basins, and continental shelves along the Wilkes Land and Princess Elizabeth Land.
ICECAP will collect VHF radar profiles and laser altimetry to fill in gaps in the subglacial bed topography and to measure ice sheet thickness and surface elevation, and gravity and magnetic potential field data to help constrain both the geology of the inaccessible subglacial East Antarctic craton and to resolve the unknown bathymetry underneath ice shelves and the sea-ice choked continental shelves. In addition, this year the team plans to collect airborne data to support a group from U Tas that will be operating an autonomous underwater vehicle beneath Sorsdale Ice Shelf.'
Meanwhile, some updates from Robyn, up on the ship's monkey deck: 'AIRBOX instruments behaving well, we started the HiVol (high volume) filter system today, as we are pointing into the wind and resupply operations are not a problem while we are at anchor. We were concerned that our Tekran elemental mercury instrument was not responding as we've only measured very low background values the whole time, despite sampling ship emissions some-times. So a couple of us with amalgam fillings (which contain mercury) volunteered to breathe into the air inlet for 15 minutes and we saw a large response out of the instrument! Atmospheric background values of total gaseous mercury are between 0.5 and 1 nanogram per cubic meter over the Southern Ocean. In our breath experiment we measured up to 60-100 ng.m-3 – so while we are confident the instrument response is just fine: we are re-evaluating having the mercury in our dental work looked at upon our return!'
Our thanks to Enrica and Robyn for their submissions.
Regards,
Voyage Management.
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.