NAVY NEWS, FEBRUARY 2008
● Spidey-hi... Ship’s doctor Surg Lt Cdr Matthew Turner (plus Spiderman beeny hat) takes a few
shots for the family album as Endurance approaches James Ross Island and (left) up close and
personal with one of Deception Island’s chinstrap penguins
YEP, it’s ‘pingu’ time
(a
again.
w
Just as the men and women
ICE survey ship HMS Endurance has
of HMS Endurance cannot resist
completed her fi rst work period in the
ph
taking pictures of these comical, Antarctic as an 18-month deployment
its
smelly (and sometimes slightly
to the Southern Hemisphere begins in
irritable) birds, so we cannot
is
resist publishing them.
earnest.
There is, of course, so much
more to the Red Plum’s time
in and around Antarctica than Boulind, Flight Ops. before the Deputy Ed was
pausing for a penguin portrait. “You have to work with born – Assistant Ed) are
For a start, there’s unfinished Antarctica and it will decide when being collected to look at
business from the ship’s 2006-07 you can move and when you can’t. how they thrived in an age
season among the ice. The challenge of fl ying to such when the ‘frozen continent’
Twelve months ago, Endurance a high altitude in such extreme was actually the ‘tropical
began stockpiling equipment and conditions is something that you continent’ with a climate
stores for the British Antarctic can never really appreciate until akin to the Caribbean.
Survey on Mount Haddington, you get here.” And yet more scientists
a sprawling 5,200ft high extinct The reason for all that effort is are wading through mud
volcano on James Ross Island a series of experiments by the and soil samples to study
– which just happens to be the BAS team. Antarctica’s unique
ow
focal point of a key BAS study. The scientists are spending species of fungi and
More than 20 scientists two months drilling into the endemic bacteria.
and field assistants from the Antarctic ice. With the earth’s
Cambridge-based research Now for the science bit... temperature
organisation, plus 20 tonnes of Imagine the bubbles in an having risen 3˚C
equipment were ferried to the Aero bar. Within each bubble is in the past half century,
an
Antarctic by the Red Plum. a changeable mixture of gases so activity by these fungi and
Once safely arrived, – making each bubble a miniature bacteria increases – and with it
co
there was the small time capsule. the amount of carbon dioxide
fi r
matter of moving men The deeper you go, the further they produce.
m
and matériel from ship back in time you go. Away from the mainland, the
re
to shore. By the time the scientists reach Red Plum has been using her hi-
Endurance’s two Lynx the bottom, they have gone back tech sonar and survey equipment
sc
helicopters from 815 NAS 12,000 years and the information to update navigational charts
of
– one fl own by a crew who have gathered will show how the planet around the Antarctic.
am
experience of operating in the has changed. That mission has taken on
sa
Antarctic – added more than All the ice cores will be brought extra significance in the wake of
pe
3,000 miles to the odometer back to Endurance for returning two serious accidents involving
an
ferrying BAS kit on to the volcano, to the UK. The ensuing research cruise ships in the past year.
w
a mission which demanded will be fundamental to our Endurance came to the aid
Herculean efforts by the whole understanding of the impact of of MV Nordkapp when it ran
ph
es: la(phot) kelly whybr
ship’s company in moving the climate change to our planet. aground at Deception Island.
w
equipment around the ship ready Another team of boffi ns is There was nothing anyone
ou
for lifting by the two helicopters. looking even further back in time. could do, however, to save the
ca
“The biggest challenge was Fossilised clams and scallops MV Explorer which sank after sa
the weather,” explains Lt Matt from 10 million years ago (just striking an iceberg late last year En
pictur
● ‘The terrible blighting wall of ice’ – (above and left) the huge cliffs of
ice on the perilous approaches to James Ross Island
024-025_NN_Feb.indd 1 18/1/08 15:48:54
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