January 24 Crossing a sea of ice

What an amazing scene!

This voyage just keeps on surprising and delighting us. The last few days have been ice days as we have hugged the coast around the Amundsen Sea and Marie Byrd Land passing massive glaciers, gigantic icebergs and ploughing through pack ice. A number of mornings we woke surrounded by a sea of ice. We quickly threw on some clothes and went outside to enjoy it.  It was freezing and fantastic! As the ice was breaking up and turning over we could see the layers of diatoms, phytoplankton, growing on the bottom of the ice (the brown, green staining on the ice). These microorganisms require sunlight for growth so they would be very happy this morning. These wee life forms are the basic food for ice krill also known as crystal krill or Antarctic coastal krill which in turn are one of the major components of the food chain in Antarctic coastal waters for seals and penguins and so on. They also produce 50% of the world's oxygen.

This is grease ice I think - new sea ice forming

A snapshot from the lift of 'Oscillations' playing on the atrium wall (lift well)

The excellent virtual reality artwork which plays around the ship and features in a 9m panel in the atrium/lift well could very well be ice!

Later in the day we had a couple of excellent lectures. One about pinnipeds (seals) and the other about ice which was perfectly timed. I don’t think I will ever get my head around Antarctica.  It's an extremely complex place to study. As a result much of what we understand is inference rather than fact. Nevertheless I keep trying to understand and there are more lectures coming up - hooray! 

The image below shows the ice shelves around Antarctica. I had no idea there were so many but it stands to reason. Almost 98% of Antarctica is blanketed in thick ice. As we know like water ice flows ever so slowly but flow it does and as a result icy shelves and tongue-like projections stretch out into the surrounding sea. The ice shelves play an important role in preserving the ice sheet that dominates Antarctica.