Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Ruffles have ridges

I've sent out quite a few lifestyle blogs recently, so I thought I'd return to some of the beauty that surrounds this continent today. Pressure ridges. When ice bodies collide with each other, they form pressure ridges where the ice is forced up into the air to alleviate the pressure. Two days ago, I went to a pressure ridge tour at Scott Base (the local Kiwi base). In fact, it is the only base we can get to without flying hundreds of miles.

Pressure ridges (photo by Kevin O'Connell)

At Scott Base, the Ross Glacier is coming off the continent to crash into the sea ice that resides in McMurdo sound. The glacier moves about a meter a day so the ridges are changing each and everyday. The tour guides say they can notice substantial changes from one day to the next. We are only allowed to take a tour out to the pressure ridges because some moron from a few years ago thought it would be a good idea to harass the seals that were pulled out of the water over there. Consequently, the Kiwis only let us (the Americans) come over in official tour groups. Where is this guy and how about we sick some starved leopard seals on him since he enjoys wildlife so much?

Pressure ridges (photo by Kevin O'Connell)

Kevin O'Connell, who took the two pictures above, is a phenomenal photographer. My photos were all overexposed. I wasn't in the mood to get my camera adjusted right and quite simply, it shows. I need to take a class on this stuff so I can do less figuring out and more taking pictures.

After the pressure ridge tour, I stuck around Scott Base for trivia night. My team brought it all home. We won our choice of key chains, lanyards, and candy. I took the candy. Yum yum.

4 comments:

  1. Great images Brody. The guy that forked things up for all that followed must have never heard the caveat "look but don't touch".
    John K. Endrizzi

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  2. Beautiful pictures. Just beautiful!! The seal guy will get what's coming to him someday. What an idiot.

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  3. You can't just throw out that you won trivia and not tell us what you contributed to your enclave's victory. I know it wasn't sports related **ducks**, so it had to be music, or N64 tetris...

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  4. Blake,
    I was our trivia team's go to geography guy. However, if there was anything that had Tetris on it, I would have dominated. I might be rusty, but some skills you just never lose. I think some of the movement's became instinct.

    We actually had someone else as our music guru. He pulled out all the members of Pink Floyd in the final round to help secure our victory. Unfortunately, none of us new Billy Idol's real name.

    -Brody

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