Heavy sea ice conditions have thwarted a science mission from reaching the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica from which a large iceberg broke off in July 2017. A team of scientists, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are travelling on board the RRS James Clark Ross. Sea ice, up to 4-5 meters thick, has made progress for the ship very slow and on 28 February) the ship’s captain made the difficult decision not to continue.
A team of international scientists led by the British Antarctic Survey set off on Wednesday to explore a mysterious marine ecosystem that has lain hidden under an ice shelf for up to 120,000 years.
The RRS Discovery arrived on Tuesday in Chile's extreme south port of Punta Arenas in advance of her next research expedition, to undertake seismic survey and piston coring operations in the eastern Falkland Plateau region of the Sub-Antarctic Southwest Atlantic Ocean.
A team of cartographers at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has re-produced a high-resolution updated map of the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. The island, situated at 37°W 54°10’S is a haven for wildlife, a centre for wildlife and fisheries research and famous for the epic voyage by Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men just over a century ago.
Two British scientific research vessels coincided in Montevideo in early May at the end of the Antarctic season, in their way back to Southampton. Icebreaker RRS Shackleton and RRS James Clark Ross with sophisticated scientific research equipment and tens of experts in different disciplines spent months in Antarctica and returned to Montevideo, a traditional call port the British Antarctic Survey, BAS.
Every two years BAS leads a scientific research survey of the fish resources on behalf of the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands. This time Dr. Mark Belchier from BAS was head of the team of experts that carried out the survey.
The longest and most comprehensive study to date of what penguins eat is published this month. The study, published in the journal Marine Biology, examines the diets of gentoo penguins (Pygoscelis papua) at Bird Island, South Georgia over a 22 year period and is part of a project investigating the Southern Ocean ecosystem and its response to change
British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has decided not to winter at Halley VI Research Station for safety reasons. The station, which is located on the floating Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, will shut down between March and November 2017.
Personnel from HMS Protector have removed equipment abandoned more than 30 years ago on a remote island in Antarctica. The ice patrol ship attempted to remove equipment three years ago from Brabant Island – the second largest island of the Palmer Archipelago within the British Antarctic Territory – but were thwarted by bad weather.
A team of European scientists heads to East Antarctica this month to locate the oldest ice on Earth. The team is part of an EU-funded research consortium from ten European countries whose aim is to search for a suitable site to drill an ice core to capture 1.5 million years of Earth’s climate history.