The
last few days have finally picked up for our field season. The weather
has not provided much opportunity for air transport to our automatic weather
stations. However, we were able to visit our station on Minna Bluff and
pull in some GPS recorders and a tilt meter on the iceberg C16. Minna
Bluff is about 80 km from McMurdo station. We used a helicopter
to get to the station and service it. Our station is located on top of
the bluff at an elevation of about 900 m; the location experiences very
strong winds. The problem was an easy fix, we just had to replace the
antenna, it had been destroyed by the wind. The trip to iceberg C16 was
to pull in some gear that was placed there in December. We
are working with a group from University of Chicago studying the motion
of the icebergs. Currently, there are weather stations on C16 and B15a
with GPS receivers. We hope to make a trip to B15a in the next few days
to service the stations located there. We are also getting ready to head
home by packing up and shipping our gear back to Madison.
Jonathan Thom, 24 January 2002
(click on picture to enlarge)
