Location: Ice Station Belgica Latitude: 69° 89′ S Longitude: 93° 10′ W
Antarctic trivia (answer at the end of this journal entry): The Titanic, though billed to be "unsinkable” sank in under three hours after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912. The iceberg wasn’t the only problem, however; do you know some of the other reasons so many people died on the ship’s maiden voyage?
The Palmer and our new neighbor, a mammoth iceberg!
Yesterday morning when I looked out my porthole I saw a pair of seals; today, a huge iceberg dominates my view! We continue to have numerous icebergs around us at Ice Station Belgica. The bridge monitors their location by radar - Steve checked the radar screen recently and noted more than 70 icebergs in a six nautical mile range. The large iceberg on our port side today was initially on the starboard side of the ship some distance away. I remember looking through binoculars on the bridge and seeing the cave in the bottom of this iceberg. No binoculars are required for that anymore…the iceberg has been as close as a third of a mile to us today.
IcebergsA floating body of ice that has broken away from a glacier. are broken-off chunks of glaciers or ice shelves that drift in the open ocean. In our case, the open ocean is covered by ice, so they drift in the ice as we are doing now. The location of the icebergs around us changes daily. When we first arrived at our drift station we gave names to some of the icebergs in view for easier reference. "Head towards Krakatoa and turn left at the flag…” or something like that was commonly heard at the start of our ice camp. Krakatoa soon shifted to another location, and eventually out of view. It turns out that icebergs don’t make very good landmarks!
Our neighbor is classified as a tabular berg, and the cave we can see at the water line is common for these types of icebergs. The cave has been carved out by the action of water and waves. As these icebergs melt they may tilt or roll over; our berg shows this tilting along with large crevasses at the top. Tabular icebergs are less dense than other types due to the presence of small bubbles of air that are trapped between the layers of compressed snow that forms them. Since they are less dense than other icebergs, the proportion of the iceberg underwater is only about 4 to 5 times its height, instead of the usual 9 times if it were solid ice. On a related density note, the Palmer is riding a lot higher in the water these days since we’ve used up a considerable amount of our fuel. Given the same volume, but a decreased mass, our density is less than when we started the cruise, so we sit higher in the water column. Less of the Palmer is underwater than before, just like our iceberg neighbor when compared to other types of icebergs.
Needless to say Captain Mike has been closely monitoring the movement of our "berg” neighbor carefully. The ship can be moved to a safe location if the iceberg gets too close, but there is the danger that it will collide with our floe and essentially cause the cessation of our data collection here. Just another potential hazard when working in such extreme environments as Antarctica. We seem to be having more than our fair share of these things.
Coincidentally, my high school staged the musical Titanic last year, which I was honored to be a part of. The musical is not the same as the movie version of the tragedy; it tells the stories of the real people aboard the ship and ends with a hopeful "We’ll meet tomorrow.” I offered to hum a few bars to the folks on the bridge this afternoon, but for some reason they weren’t interested…This year we’re putting on Annie Get Your Gun – I wonder if there is a trip to a "wild west” location in my future? I’m pretty certain that my Antarctic adventures won’t be topped by any travel I’ll do in the future!
Late this evening the iceberg was in about the same position it had been this morning, though it did seem to challenge us during the day by moving closer, then retreating. It seems to be engaging in a turf war with us, or perhaps challenging us to a game of Antarctic "tag” – this is one game I’m pretty sure we’d lose!
Try this: Here are some iceberg related items to research: • Why was the Titanic said to be unsinkable? • Because icebergs are composed of fresh water they have been seen as a source of drinking water for arid regions. It has been proposed that icebergs could be towed to regions where the melt water could then be collected and distributed. What potential problems and benefit exist with this plan? • How are Arctic and Antarctic icebergs different? • What does the term iceberg "calving” mean?
Answer to today’s Antarctic trivia question: The Titanic, though billed to be "unsinkable” sank in under three hours after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912. The iceberg wasn’t the only problem, however; do you know some of the other reasons so many people died on the ship’s maiden voyage?
More than 1500 of the 2200 passengers aboard Titanic died. Here are some of the reasons why… • The captain ignored radio warnings about ice in the area. • The ship was going too fast in dangerous waters. • There was only enough lifeboat space for half the passengers and crew. • A nearby ship didn’t hear Titanic’s SOS because the radio operator was off duty and asleep.
The good news is that this tragedy led to improvements in maritime safety – improved iceberg detection systems, requirements for adequate lifeboat space and drills, and the requirement for a full-time radio watch while at sea. Marine mammals and seabirds spotted today by Brent: Crabeater seal Antarctic petrel Southern fulmar
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