Helo Flight to New Harbor

On Thursday, we flew by helicopter to a bay on the mainland of Antarctica called New Harbor to collect some seafloor samples.

It was about a 30-minute chopper ride from McMurdo to the field camp at New Harbor.

Antarctica is amazing to see from the air. As we were crossing McMurdo Sound, we could see a field of enormous icebergs trapped in the sea ice north of us:

The base camp at New Harbor is used primarily for diving under the sea ice there. There is a species of foraminifera unique to New Harbor - foraminifera are single-celled, often macroscopic, organisms with fairly complex behavior. The sea ice at New Harbor is not smooth and flat like elsewhere in McMurdo Sound - here tidal forces cause it to be cracked and compressed and ridged:

The dark color patches you see on the sea ice above are collected dust and dirt carried by winds from the shore. There were lots of interesting patterns and formations to see in the ice:

Below are what appear to be bubbles trapped in the ice:

At New Harbor, dive holes are made by using explosives to blast a big hole in the ice, then letting the hole partially refreeze to form a foot-thick shelf, then using a chainsaw to cut a nice round hole. Here is the result:

We made two dives through this hole. The surrounding scenery was just gorgeous. Below is a shot of the nearby mountains and part of the Commonwealth Glacier:

And finally, a last shot of Mt. Erebus from the air on the way home:

Another amazing day!