scholarly journals British Antarctic Survey, 1978–79

Polar Record ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 19 (123) ◽  
pp. 605-612
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Summer Season ◽  
The West ◽  
Marked Contrast ◽  
British Antarctic Survey ◽  
Field Workers ◽  
Biological Programme ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
The Trinity

Five main British Antarctic Survey stations were occupied throughout the year. These were Faraday and Halley (the two geophysical observatories), Signy (the main biological station), Grytviken (a multi-disciplinary sub-Antarctic station and centre for the Offshore Biological Programme) and Rothera (the centre for earth sciences programmes). During the 1978 winter, routine programmes were maintained by 69 men who also made preparations for the forthcoming summer season. The two BAS ships, RRS John Biscoe and RRS Bransfield, with assistance from two Twin Otter aircraft relieved the stations, as usual, and assisted summer field workers. With the early recall of John Biscoe to undergo a major refit, invaluable support was also given by HMS Endurance, especially in the Trinity Peninsula area. Apart from Rothera, relief was completed by the end of January 1979 and, in marked contrast to some years, Halley was reached without difficulty. Persistent sea ice late into the season in the southern part of the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula meant that Rothera could not be reached by Bransfield until mid-February. However, the season saw the completion of the new Rothera station, some major rebuilding at Faraday (originally constructed in 1954) and the installation of a new ionospherics laboratory at Halley. As with the design of the 1973 Halley station, the Rothera complex has aroused considerable international interest.

scholarly journals Earlier Sightings of Humpback Whales in Antarctica

Oryx ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 430-430
Author(s):  
Peter Kinnear
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Megaptera Novaeangliae ◽  
Humpback Whales ◽  
The West ◽  
British Antarctic Survey ◽  
The Antarctic

Nigel Bonner has documented sightings of humpbacks Megaptera novaeangliae off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula which seem to indicate some recovery of stocks (Oryx 16, 3: 231–232). It may therefore be worth placing on record the following sightings of this species made from Argentine Islands for 1970/72, when I was stationed at the British Antarctic Survey base.

British Antarctic Survey, 1979–80

Polar Record ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 20 (126) ◽  
pp. 266-275
Keyword(s):  
Earth Sciences ◽  
Complete Recovery ◽  
Summer Season ◽  
Fuel Tank ◽  
Biological Station ◽  
British Antarctic Survey ◽  
Continuous Service ◽  
Field Workers ◽  
Biological Programme ◽  
The Antarctic

Five main British Antarctic Survey stations were occupied throughout the year: Faraday and Halley (the two geophysical observatories), Signy (the main biological station), Grytviken (a multidisciplinary sub-Antarctic station and centre for the Offshore Biological Programme) and Rothera (the centre for earth sciences programmes). During the 1979 winter, routine programmes were maintained by 72 men who also made preparations for the forthcoming summer season. The two BAS ships, RRS John Biscoe and RRS Bransfield, with assistance from two Twin Otter aircraft relieved the stations, as usual, and assisted summer field workers. Valuable assistance was also given by the ice-patrol ship, HMS Endurance. John Biscoearrived in the Antarctic late in the season, having been delayed while her refit was completed. (The ship, which has been in continuous service since 1965, had undergone major repairs and modifications to ensure her continued suitability for Antarctic service and to increase her usefulness as a floating laboratory.) All stations were relieved without difficulty, but, because of this season's tight shipping schedules, Rothera was not reached by sea until the end of March 1980, although it had been relieved by air at the beginning of January. At Halley, the season was overshadowed by the death of the base commander, Miles Mosley, in an accident involving one of the aircraft. A second man was injured but made a complete recovery. At Faraday, good progress was made with the programme of modernization. Part of the main building was demolished and replaced by a new extension, and a desalination plant and new inflatable fuel tank were brought into use.

Ornithological observations at Eckener Point, Antarctic Peninsula

Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J Woehler ◽  
Louise Blight ◽  
Ian Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Personal Communication ◽  
Avian Species ◽  
Nesting Habitat ◽  
The West ◽  
Lichen Diversity ◽  
Unpublished Report ◽  
Pygoscelis Antarctica ◽  
The Antarctic

Eckener Point (64° 26′S; 61° 36′W) lies on the northeast side of the entrance to Charlotte Bay and southeast of Murray Island, on the west coast of Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula (Fig. 1). Data from a 1987 census (Woehler 1993) show 40 breeding pairs of chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis antarctica at the site. An unpublished report of 180 nests of blue-eyed cormorant Phalacrocorax atriceps/bransfieldensis (S Poncet, personal communication, 2004) in 1983 is the only other ornithological record for the site. Here we report on the results of a brief survey conducted to document the breeding seabirds for this locality. Suitable ice-free sites on the Antarctic Peninsula are limited, and Eckener Point, though small, provides nesting habitat for a high number of avian species. Plant and lichen diversity also appears unusually high.

scholarly journals The retreat of Jones Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (175) ◽  
pp. 555-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian J. Fox ◽  
David G. Vaughan
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Climate Warming ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Climate Forcing ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
The West ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
East And West ◽  
The Antarctic

AbstractIn recent decades, several ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have diminished in size as a result of climate warming. Using aerial photographic, satellite and survey data we document a similar retreat of Jones Ice Shelf, which was another small ice shelf on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. This ice shelf was roughly stable between 1947 and 1969, but in the early 1970s it began to retreat and had completely disappeared by early 2003. Jones Ice Shelf has two ice fronts only a few kilometres apart and its retreat provides a unique opportunity to examine how different ice fronts retreat when subjected to similar climate forcing. We mapped the retreat of both the east and west ice fronts of Jones Ice Shelf and found that, although individual episodes of retreat may be related to particularly warm summers, the overall progress of retreat of the two ice fronts has been rather different. This suggests that in this case the course of retreat is controlled by the geometry of the embayment and location of pinning points as well as climatic events.

scholarly journals Climate change in the western Antarctic Peninsula since 1945: observations and possible causes

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 571-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. King ◽  
S. A. Harangozo
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
The West ◽  
Sea Ice Extent ◽  
The North ◽  
Ultimate Cause ◽  
Temperature Records ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Antarctic

Temperature records from slations on the west roast of the Antarctic Peninsula show a very high level of interannual variability and, over the last 50 years, larger warming trends than are seen elsewhere in Antarctica. in this paper we investigate the role of atmospheric circulation variability and sea-ice extent variations in driving these changes. Owing to a lack of independent data, the reliability of Antarctic atmospheric analyses produced in the 1950s and 1960s cannot be readily established, but examination of the available data suggests that there has been an increase in the northerly component of the circulation over the Peninsula since the late 1950s. Few observations of sea-ice extent are available prior to 1973, but the limited data available indicate that the ice edge to the west of the Peninsula lay to the north of recently observed extremes during the very cold conditions prevailing in the late 1950s. The ultimate cause of the atmospheric-circulation changes remains to be determined and may lie outside the Antarctic region.

scholarly journals Simultaneous solution for mass trends on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 2995-3035 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Schön ◽  
A. Zammit-Mangion ◽  
J. L. Bamber ◽  
J. Rougier ◽  
T. Flament ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Loss ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
The West ◽  
Spatial Error ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Forward Models ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest potential source of future sea-level rise. Mass loss has been increasing over the last two decades in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), but with significant discrepancies between estimates, especially for the Antarctic Peninsula. Most of these estimates utilise geophysical models to explicitly correct the observations for (unobserved) processes. Systematic errors in these models introduce biases in the results which are difficult to quantify. In this study, we provide a statistically rigorous, error-bounded trend estimate of ice mass loss over the WAIS from 2003–2009 which is almost entirely data-driven. Using altimetry, gravimetry, and GPS data in a hierarchical Bayesian framework, we derive spatial fields for ice mass change, surface mass balance, and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) without relying explicitly on forward models. The approach we use separates mass and height change contributions from different processes, reproducing spatial features found in, for example, regional climate and GIA forward models, and provides an independent estimate, which can be used to validate and test the models. In addition, full spatial error estimates are derived for each field. The mass loss estimates we obtain are smaller than some recent results, with a time-averaged mean rate of −76 ± 15 GT yr−1 for the WAIS and Antarctic Peninsula (AP), including the major Antarctic Islands. The GIA estimate compares very well with results obtained from recent forward models (IJ05-R2) and inversion methods (AGE-1). Due to its computational efficiency, the method is sufficiently scalable to include the whole of Antarctica, can be adapted for other ice sheets and can easily be adapted to assimilate data from other sources such as ice cores, accumulation radar data and other measurements that contain information about any of the processes that are solved for.

scholarly journals Changes in glacier dynamics in the northern Antarctic Peninsula since 1985

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thorsten Seehaus ◽  
Alison J. Cook ◽  
Aline B. Silva ◽  
Matthias Braun
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
West Coast ◽  
East Coast ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Flow Speed ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Surface Velocity ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
The West ◽  
Ice Dynamics

Abstract. The climatic conditions along the northern Antarctic Peninsula have shown significant changes within the last 50 years. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of temporally and spatially detailed observations of the changes in ice dynamics along both the east and west coastlines of the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Temporal evolutions of glacier area (1985–2015) and ice surface velocity (1992–2014) are derived from a broad multi-mission remote sensing database for 74 glacier basins on the northern Antarctic Peninsula ( <  65° S along the west coast and north of the Seal Nunataks on the east coast). A recession of the glaciers by 238.81 km2 is found for the period 1985–2015, of which the glaciers affected by ice shelf disintegration showed the largest retreat by 208.59 km2. Glaciers on the east coast north of the former Prince Gustav Ice Shelf extent in 1986 receded by only 21.07 km2 (1985–2015) and decelerated by about 58 % on average (1992–2014). A dramatic acceleration after ice shelf disintegration with a subsequent deceleration is observed at most former ice shelf tributaries on the east coast, combined with a significant frontal retreat. In 2014, the flow speed of the former ice shelf tributaries was 26 % higher than before 1996. Along the west coast the average flow speeds of the glaciers increased by 41 %. However, the glaciers on the western Antarctic Peninsula revealed a strong spatial variability of the changes in ice dynamics. By applying a hierarchical cluster analysis, we show that this is associated with the geometric parameters of the individual glacier basins (hypsometric indexes, maximum surface elevation of the basin, flux gate to catchment size ratio). The heterogeneous spatial pattern of ice dynamic evolutions at the northern Antarctic Peninsula shows that temporally and spatially detailed observations as well as further monitoring are necessary to fully understand glacier change in regions with such strong topographic and climatic variances.

scholarly journals Permo-Carboniferous conglomerates in the Trinity Peninsula Group at View Point, Antarctic Peninsula: sedimentology, geochronology and isotope evidence for provenance and tectonic setting in Gondwana

2011 ◽  
Vol 149 (4) ◽  
pp. 626-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN D. BRADSHAW ◽  
ALAN P. M. VAUGHAN ◽  
IAN L. MILLAR ◽  
MICHAEL J. FLOWERDEW ◽  
RUDOLPH A. J. TROUW ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Detrital Zircon ◽  
Tectonic Setting ◽  
Detrital Zircons ◽  
View Point ◽  
Transport Distance ◽  
Clastic Sedimentary ◽  
Detrital Zircon Ages ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
The Trinity

AbstractField observations from the Trinity Peninsula Group at View Point on the Antarctic Peninsula indicate that thick, southward-younging and overturned clastic sedimentary rocks, comprising unusually coarse conglomeratic lenses within a succession of fine-grained sandstone–mudstone couplets, are the deposits of debris and turbidity flows on or at the foot of a submarine slope. Three detrital zircons from the sandstone–mudstone couplets date deposition at 302 ± 3 Ma, at or shortly after the Carboniferous–Permian boundary. Conglomerates predominantly consist of quartzite and granite and contain boulders exceeding 500 mm in diameter. Zircons from granitoid clasts and a silicic volcanic clast yield U–Pb ages of 466 ± 3 Ma, 373 ± 5 Ma and 487 ± 4 Ma, respectively and have corresponding average εHft values between +0.3 and +7.6. A quartzite clast, conglomerate matrix and sandstone interbedded with the conglomerate units have broadly similar detrital zircon age distributions and Hf isotope compositions. The clast and detrital zircon ages match well with sources within Patagonia; however, the age of one granite clast and the εHf characteristics of some detrital zircons point to a lesser South Africa or Ellsworth Mountain-like contribution, and the quartzite and granite-dominated composition of the conglomerates is similar to upper Palaeozoic diamictites in the Ellsworth Mountains. Unlike detrital zircons, large conglomerate clasts limit possible transport distance, and suggest sedimentation took place on or near the edge of continental crust. Comparison with other upper Palaeozoic to Mesozoic sediments in the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia, including detrital zircon composition and the style of deformation, suggests deposition of the Trinity Peninsula Group in an upper plate basin on an active margin, rather than a subduction-related accretionary setting, with slow extension and rifting punctuated by short periods of compression.

XXX.—Actiniaria and Zoantharia of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–1904

1939 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 791-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Carlgren
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Cape Verde ◽  
Falkland Islands ◽  
Full Information ◽  
The West ◽  
Gough Island ◽  
Antarctic Expedition ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
A New Species

The collection of Actiniaria and Zoantharia made by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition contains nineteen species, one of which, Porponia antarctica Carlgren, I described as a new species in 1914. In all there were six species from the Antarctic, three from the Falkland Islands, six from the west coast of Cape Province, three from the Cape Verde Islands, and one, not specifically determined, from Gough Island. The new species here described are Epiactis vincentina, Epiactis brucei, Sicyonis antarctica, and Palythoa vincentina. I have not thought it necessary to compile a complete list of the literature and synonyms of the species, since in the papers cited full information is given.

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