As the Antarctica field team gets into action this 2023 Weddell seal pupping season in Erebus Bay, flagging safe snowmobile routes over the sea ice to the many Weddell seal pupping colonies is one of the first major pupping season activities of the field team on the Ice. This work is crucial to safe travel and work on the sea ice, and takes a couple of days to complete. Here's a video from a past season showing what's involved in flagging these safe snowmobile routes.
This season, the sea ice is in pretty good shape throughout the Erebus Bay area. There are a number of large sea ice cracks that happen every year, and many smaller cracks that are new each season. The field team learns how to properly drill for these cracks both to expose them and measure the sea ice thickness for safety purposes. This drilling will continue for many cracks over the course of the changing conditions as the sea ice begins to melt in places during the Austral Spring. The Antarctica field team is well trained to safely accomplish these tasks!
Comments