Tag: Antarctic

ScienceDaily (July 11, 2011) Scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered previously unknown volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands.

Using ship-borne sea-floor mapping technology during research cruises onboard the RRS James Clark Ross, the scientists found 12 volcanoes beneath the sea surface -- some up to 3km high. They found 5km diameter craters left by collapsing volcanoes and 7 active volcanoes visible above the sea as a chain of islands.

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg has broken off from a glacier in Antarctica after being rammed by another giant iceberg, scientists said on Friday, in an event that could affect ocean circulation patterns.

The 2,500 sq km (965 sq mile) iceberg broke off earlier this month from the Mertz Glacier's 160 km (100 miles) floating tongue of ice that sticks out into the Southern Ocean. more...

ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2010) A new study examines how ice sheets, such as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, could become unstable as the world warms.

The team from Oxford University and Cambridge University developed a model to explore how changes in the 'grounding line' -- where an ice sheet floats free from its base of rock or sediment -- could lead to the disintegration of ice sheets and result in a significant rise in global sea level.

ON BOARD THE ASTROLABE, Southern Ocean, Dec 14 (Reuters Life!) - Getting to and from work can be annoying if you hit traffic, but for Mireille Raccurt, it takes more than 10 days of flying and sailing through treacherous seas to get to her job.

Dr Raccurt is a researcher with France's government-funded National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) as well as a lecturer at the Universite Claude Bernard at Lyon.

She has been traveling to the French scientific station in Dumont D'Urville in east Antarctica for eight summers now to conduct research on the Adelie penguin, whose population has dropped by more than 65 percent over the past 25 years due to the reduction in sea ice and a scarcity of food.