Critter-finding mission to Antarctica’s Larsen C iceberg scrapped
Too much ice prevented the research vessel from reaching the calving site
PACKED ICE Floating ice — 4- or 5-meters-thick in some places — choking the Weddell Sea ended a British Antarctic Survey research vessel’s mission to the Larsen C ice shelf in February. The mission planned to explore seafloor life newly exposed after a giant iceberg split off from the shelf last July.
Susie Grant/BAS
Thick sea ice has thwarted researchers’ plans to explore what creatures lived beneath an Antarctic ice shelf. A mission to study seafloor life suddenly exposed by the breaking away of the Larsen C iceberg last July was delayed as it tried to navigate through floating ice, some chunks as thick as 5 meters. With 400 kilometers still to go, the captain of the vessel, the RRS James Clark Ross, canceled the mission February 28.
“It was nature [that] defeated us,” said principal investigator and marine biologist Katrin Linse of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge in a video released by BAS March 2. “We knew this mission was high risk and high reward.”
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Not all is lost, though. The vessel is now heading to the nearby Larsen A ice shelf, where an iceberg broke away in 1995. There, researchers will study a never-explored deep-sea seafloor ecosystem 1,000 meters beneath the ocean’s surface.
Linse will have another opportunity to visit Larsen C, however. She’ll join a 2019 expedition led by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany.
New target
Researchers were headed to iceberg A68, which split off from the Larsen C ice shelf last July. But some 400 kilometers from their destination, ice forced the researchers to change course. They are now heading through relatively ice-free waters to the Larsen A ice shelf, where a giant iceberg broke off in 1995. No biological expedition has examined the seafloor since the break, said marine biologist Katrin Linse in a news release March 2. “We’re excited about what deep-sea creatures we might find.”
