Project lead scientist Prof. Jay Rotella reports this morning that he has heard from field team leader Parker Levinson that the field research team has safely arrived in Antarctica. "They made it to McMurdo Station. Their gear has also arrived and the items we shipped down as cargo this summer are all present and ready, which is great. I think we’ll know a lot more within 1-2 days about when they’ll be trained and cleared to go out on the sea ice."
This season the field team will be based on station at McMurdo, the largest of the three US Antarctic bases. In many past seasons the team was based at a remote sea. ice camp near Big Razorback Island, which is more central to the Weddell seal pupping colonies in Erebus Bay, Antarctica. (Please see a map above of the Weddell seal pupping colonies that are the primary focus of the Erebus Bay Weddell seal population project.)
For the past several years, due variously to the pandemic, sea ice conditions and fiscal constraints, the team has worked out of McMurdo Station. This means longer snowmobile drives to access the numerous pupping colonies and return home in the evenings, and longer work days for the field team. Yet it also means that the team will have easier access to the many support services and benefits of living on and working from the largest US Antarctic base.
We hope to learn more soon, and will update all when we do!
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