The NASA OIB team completed the second mission of the 2018 Antarctic deployment “Blackwall-Recovery IS2” (decoded as Blackwall Ice Stream* and Recovery Glacier** with mission lines under-flying future IS2 lines). This science site was not far from yesterday’s region (again, a 4-hour, 2100 mile (one way) “commute” from Punta Arenas), and the weather was as good as yesterday, sunny, clear with very few minor turbulence bumps.
Other than the ever-changing interplay of sunlight on glacier features, we didn’t see many geological features today (not even the namesake black walls), but I’ve attached some photos of the glacier features.
All OIB science remote sensing instruments reported good instrument performance and data collection today.
We hope to attempt another mission tomorrow, weather permitting.
*Blackwall Ice Stream (Coordinates: 82°52′S 35°21′W) is a slightly S-shaped Antarctic ice stream about 240 nautical miles (440 km)long and 12 nautical miles (22 km) wide. It descends from about 1,900 meters (6,200 ft) to 730 meters (2,400 ft) where it joins Recovery Glacier between the Argentina Range and the Whichaway Nunataks. It was named after Hugh Blackwall Evans (1874–1975), an English-born Canadian naturalist with the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898–1900, led by Carsten E. Borchgrevink.[1]
**The Recovery Glacier (Coordinates: 81°10′S 28°00′W) is a glacier flowing west along the southern side of the Shackleton Range in Antarctica. First seen from the air and examined from the ground by the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1957, it was so named because of the recovery of the expedition’s vehicles which repeatedly broke into bridged crevasses on this glacier during the early stages of the crossing of Antarctica.
Global view of our flight track today, showing the long transit to the science site
Detail of today’s flight track over the science lines
Puntas Arenas along the Straits of Magellan, with snow covered mountains to the west.
Antarctic Peninsula mountains enroute south this morning
Sea ice in the foreground and a crack developing in the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf, with some cloud shadows
Close up of crevasses
Sunlight on snow surfaces
A crevasse field on the glacier
Crevasses and smooth snow surfaces
Crevasses with blue ice walls
An ATM T6 wide scan lidar elevation plot showing crevasses about 40 meters deep.
Antarctic Peninsula Mountains and glacier (foreground in shadow) on the return to Punta Arenas