Lava Lakes and Ice Shelves

I've been reading the last few chapters of Brother Astronomer, which describe Guy Consolmagno's trip in 1996 to Antarctica to look for meteorites with ANSMET. Don't know exactly why, but I'm fascinated with that area, so I've been reading more about it, and here's some of what I've learnded, below. I know this won't interest most people, but that's the beauty of having a personal blog ... you can be boring :-)

How many times have we heard the name "McMurdo Station"? You don't need to be a scientist, but just a lover of science fiction (for instance, the X-File episode Ice), to be familiar with this outpost on Ross Isalnd, in the Ross Sea. People from all over the world (mostly scientists and military) are at the station, numbering about 1000 in summer and 300 in winter.


- Ross Island

One of the interesting things about Ross Island is that it has volcanoes, two of which are named after the ships commanded by Sir James Clark Ross in 1841 ... the Erebus and the Terror. Mount Erebus is a currently active volcano and the crator is home to one of the few permanent lava lakes in the world. Visit the website of the Mt. Erebus Volcano Observatory.


- Mt. Erebus


- the lava lake

Between Ross Island and Antarctica is what is called the Ross Ice Shelf, a floating platform of ice roughly the size of France, which rises from 15 to 50 meters above the sea's surface, with about 90% of the shelf below the surface. Chunks of ice normally break off from the shelf (iceberg calving), but in recent years, there's some concern that climate changes (global warming) are causing the disintegration of the ice shelves (the Larsen Ice Shelf). Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his party, at their deaths, were left on the Ross Ice Shelf in 1912.


- Ross Ice Shelf