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Exploring cyanobacterial diversity in Antarctica Blog

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Anne D Jungblut

Emperor penguin at pressure ridges

Posted by Anne D Jungblut on Jan 6, 2012 11:55:54 PM

Two-days ago we went for walk to the pressure ridges in the evening. The pressure ridges are forming where the ice shelf and sea ice are being pressed together at the shores of Ross Island. Last year the sea ice broke out and therefore the ice is still relatively thin and many large bright blue meltwater ponds have formed.

 

Meltwater pond in the pressure ridges

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Mt. Erebus is an active volcano that is ca. 3,700 metres high and is about 64 km away from Scott Base. Usually you can see little bit of smoke appearing from the top of the crater.

 

Pressure ridges and Mount Erebus

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Every year a few Adelie and Emperor penguins can been seen near Scott Base. At the moment, there is a lone Emperor penguin wandering through the pressure ridges. The penguins come from parts of Ross Island where the sea ice breaks out every summer. The Emperor colonies on Ross Island are quite far away and nobody really knows if these individual penguins will be able to get back to the colonies. Let's hope for the best!

 

 

Emperor penguin

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3582 Views Tags: botany, antarctica, mount_erebus, ice_shelf, pressure_ridge, emperor_penguin, volcano
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Anne D Jungblut

Anne D Jungblut

 Member since: Sep 2, 2010

I'm Anne Jungblut from the Botany Department. Join me as I head to Antarctica to study cyanobacterial diversity in ice-covered lakes of the Dry Valleys and Ross Island where already scientists on Scott's and Shakleton's expeditions made many discoveries.

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