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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @10:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the fire-up-the-John-Deere dept.

According to a December 1st article from NASA:

On Nov. 10, 2016, scientists on NASA's IceBridge mission photographed an oblique view of a massive rift in the Antarctic Peninsula's Larsen C ice shelf....

The IceBridge scientists measured the Larsen C fracture to be about 70 miles [113 km] long, more than 300 feet [91 m] wide and about a third of a mile [a half of a kilometer] deep. The crack completely cuts through the ice shelf but it does not go all the way across it – once it does, it will produce an iceberg roughly the size of the state of Delaware.

The British Antarctic Survey's Halley VI research station is currently located on the Larsen C ice shelf. Fortunately, the station was designed to move. A December 7th article from The Guardian gives more information about that station and the upcoming move:

The British Antarctic Survey's Halley VI research station has recorded data relevant to space weather, climate change, and atmospheric phenomena from its site on the Brunt Ice Shelf shelf since 2012....

The new site, nicknamed Halley VI A, was identified during in-depth site surveys in the 2015-16 Antarctic summer. Now that winter has passed, the relocation team are preparing to tow the station 23km [14 miles] to its new home using large tractors.

The Telegraph outlines the timeframe for the move:

In 2012, satellite monitoring of the ice shelf revealed the first signs of movement in the chasm that had lain dormant for at least 35 years and, by 2013, it began opening at an alarming pace of one mile per year. If the base does not move, it could be in danger of tumbling into the chasm by 2020.

To make matters more time critical, in October, a new crack emerged 10 miles [16 km] to the north of the research station across the route sometimes used to resupply the base.

The team has just nine weeks to relocate operations, before the harsh winter begins, making it difficult to move the structure amid complete darkness, plummeting temperatures and gale-force winds.

Additional information about the Halley VI research station is available from the British Antarctic Survey.


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