On Friday, back in our harbour in the fast ice between Capes Royds and Evans on Ross Island, we realised we are the most southerly ship on the planet. To get here this early in the season we’ve had to crunch our way through 900 miles of pack ice. The previous day, we landed on … Continue reading
Monthly Archives: November 2011
Scott’s hut on Cape Evans
So far, the geology on this trip has faced some stiff competion from history and penguins, but on tuesday it came into its own. We moved across McMurdo Sound overnight and into the fast ice on the west coast, ready for an assault on the Dry Valleys. It was a lovely sunny day on the … Continue reading
Reaching Shackleton’s expedition hut
Taking a circuitous route through the pack ice, we finally made it to Frankin Island at 76 degrees south. We got the ship to within 5 miles, then flew in by helicopter, landing on the sea ice at the southeastern end of the island about a mile and a half from a colony of Emperor … Continue reading
Land ahoy!
Monday 21st November Our captivity in the ice didn’t last as long as we expected. After an hour or so, just as we were beginning to discuss who to eat first, we were released from the ice. We pressed on south through this vast frozen plain, and on Saturday morning passed 73o south. It was … Continue reading
Stranded on the ice floes
Tom Sharpe continues his journey in the footsteps of Captain Scott, on the 100th anniversary of Scott’s journey to the South Pole… Friday 18 November As the ice charts showed, we reached the edge of the pack ice on schedule, open pack mainly of first year ice that was easy to move through, so we … Continue reading
Breaking through the Ross Sea ice
We’re breaking through the Ross Sea pack ice at the moment – the ice shelf was named after Captain Sir James Clark Ross who first discovered it in 1841. The Ross Ice Shelf was a popular starting point for early Antarctic explorers – both Scott and Amundsen crossed it to reach the Pole in 1911. Continue reading
Sharpe of the Antarctic
Following in the footsteps of Scott It’s a hundred years since Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill fated expedition to Antarctica, and the anniversary is being marked by many events this year and next. I’m currently on my way to visit Scott’s hut at Cape Evans, on the west side of Ross Island, where Scott built … Continue reading
Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink – the future for water?
The problem Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner faced, becalmed in the middle of the ocean, was that despite ‘water, water, everywhere’, none of it was suitable for drinking. The average human can survive for only a few days without access to clean drinking water. It is literally a vital resource. Continue reading
What a carve-up!
Not far from Burlington House stands Economist Plaza, home to the famous magazine of that name, and known to architects as the first building in the UK to be faced with the Portland Roach. That’s the limestone full of distinctive hollows created by dissolution of mostly gastropod and bivalve shells – leaving their body cavity infills behind … Continue reading
The Geological Society Blog 