The Bunger Hills

Finally, we've started our work!

Last week I was in the Bunger Hills, an area of rocky hills not covered by snow or ice, about 20 km across. It's one of the largest ice-free areas in Antarctica, so it's called an 'oasis', where there are some lakes and a few mosses growing on land. It's between two of Australia's stations: about 1000 km east of Davis, and 500 km west of Casey. I'll try to post a map soon, with all these places. Not many people visit there, but the AAD has four small fibreglass huts, which they call "Edgeworth David Base", where we stayed.

We flew there in a CASA aircraft, with all our gear and several hundred kilograms of science equipment, and landed on a frozen lake in front of the base.

I call it a lake, because it's fresh water underneath the ice, but one side of the lake is a glacier, which is floating on the sea. The glacier goes up and down with the tide, and so does the lake, and the ice on top. So to walk from the plane to the huts on land, we had to cross the 'tide crack', where the ice moves against the land. Not difficult or dangerous, but there are some pools of water where you could get your feet wet. You can see it in the picture below.

At the left of this photo you can see the frozen lake, and the CASA plane that took us to the Bunger Hills. Between the plane and the land, you can see the 'tide crack' On land, you can see the four small huts (called 'apples') of Edgeworth David Base, and then on the right is the GPS equipment that Nick and I installed. You can see the solar panels, and the wind generator, which we hope will power the instrument all through winter.

Photo credit: Dan Colbourne (CASA pilot).

There were five of us working there: Nick and I were installing surveying equipment, Pat and Krystyna were collecting moss samples, and Mel is a "Field Training Officer" who works for the AAD, and was there to make sure everything was done safely.

Ill be working with Nick for the next couple of months. He's from Geoscience Australia, and I'm from the ANU, but we do similar work, so it makes sense to cooperate for the field work. In the Bunger Hills we installed an instrument for GA, and the next place will be for ANU. Nick is also keeping a blog about his trip to Antarctica.

We installed a GPS receiver, which we hope will operate there continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for several years.

Like the GPS some people use bushwalking, or in their car, this one uses signals from satellites to measure its position on the ground. But it's more precise than normal GPS's: with a normal one, you can get your location accurate to about 10 m. That's good enough for walking or driving, but we need better accuracy: this one can give us the location to within 1 cm!

With that precision, we can study the movement of the Earth's tectonic plates, and also how Antarctica moves because of changes in the amount of ice there. That is my main interest here, and I'll write more about it later.

The GPS receiver is powered by six big batteries (like car batteries, but special ones for the cold), which are charged by solar panels in the summer, and a wind generator in the winter (when there isn't any Sun). It sends the measurements back to Australia by Iridium satellite telephone.

We celebrated Christmas while we were there: we had a few decorations in the hut, cooked a huge meal, and opened presents from home. A Perfect Antarctic Christmas!

Merry Christmas,

Dan

Comments

[Lucia Simion]

Dan, my name is Lucia, I would like to get in touch with you about experience in the Bunger Hills. I am a Science writer and photographer, specialized on Antarctica (8 expeditions).
Best wishes to you. Lucia