Fieldwork, geology photos from Antarctica #2 - Seal in the desert and the wall
Antarctica! Yeah it is cold, but did you know it is dry? A polar desert. Dry as it gets... But there are glaciers and even seals.
Did you know there were volcanoes in Antarctica? There are! See Mount Discovery in the background here (somewhat shrouded by the clouds) behind just another day of sampling. Trying to figure out the last time the glaciers here were large enough to cover this area and how long it takes geological processes, weathering etc to wear down the peaks here. For this we need to sample. Note also the curling rock (looking sort of like a wave) behind my colleague's left leg. This is "tafoni", or eroded rock formations from wind (eolian processes - sandblasting of sand grains against the rock). The rock here in intrusive igneous (think Yosemite, California or Chamonix, France) and very hard and resistant to weathering so these processes have been ongoing for a long time.
Tafoni has potential origins from the Greek word "taphos" or "tomb". Another potential origin of this word is from Sicily Corsica with the word describing "holes", taffoni, or perhaps from the word "tafonare" meaning "to perforate" (1). But I digress. The tafoni here demonstrates that this area has not had ice covering it for a long, long time. Perhaps millions of years...
Why?
Well these features formed in the bedrock, are fragile and if a glacier flowed over this site, these would break away leaving smooth surfaces. Because this is not the case, we can sample here and perhaps better understand long term climate signals (think all of the Quaternary or past 2.6 million years or perhaps longer).
The cold of course causes most precipitation here to fall as snow, this snow over time accumulates in the high country (here in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains), transforms to a neve and then to ice with increased snow weight above and through the change from snowflake to ice. The weight of this ice, plus the effects of gravity causes the ice to flow down from the high country into the lowlands. In the top picture you can see two lobes of this ice, alpine glaciers that have flowed down into the valley here. How high are these lobes?
The Wall from Game of Thrones?
Nah, just a glacier...
This photo gives some perspective, and a sense of how high the flanks of these glaciers are and it is cool to see the layers in the ice. Superposition tells us the older layers towards the bottom are well, older, with younger layers towards the surface. Note from the giant icicles on the glacier that it is not always frozen. A few days to weeks during a year (think January as this is the Southern Hemisphere) it gets warm enough for the ice to start melting and for the glacier to start dripping.
For my last post about Antarctica I was asked we found any fossils?
We found this seal, a crabeater seal here >10 km away from the coastline. A very small one, see by the size of my glove for scale, but yes a "mummy seal". The areas where bone is seen is likely due to a combination of sandblasting (when the wind blows here) which it can to >150 km/hr, and birds. And this was not the only one we found... some seals are much larger.
But what possessed he/she to crawl/flop up over the desert to this waterless zone? Perhaps someone else here reading this has insight?
No clue, but quite a surprise to find when out exploring and sampling and a nice distracting from long days in the cold, especially when camp lies far away and your bag is full of rocks...
Hope you enjoy the photos from my fieldwork.
Reference:
(1) For more on Tafoni see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafoni
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Original / personal photos & text.
Copyright @snowyknight
King of the south must be white gold as the
king of the north is ironborn! :-)
We need to catch up on the last few seasons!
That seal sure looks like he has been there awhile!
I might have a idea why they go so far out of the sea.
Comes from watching a documentary about moose.
This could be a ancient birthing area?
That or changing pole magnetics maybe?
Never have a empty bag, fill'er up with rocks! 💎 💕
Awesome posting @snowyknight! is your
steemit name related to Jon Snow?
Knight of the snowy north & south ⚔
@shasta! What an awesome reply! I wish I had the poetry to answer such a great reply!
King of the South, King of the North, King of the Ice!
Agreed that it could be a magnetic thing with the seals or sea level change or just some crazy thing we do not yet understand. If the Moose doco is online, please share it!
Fill up those bags and have a great weekend! Thanks again! I'll try to dig up some other seal photos for you... maybe a special seal-focused post? Cheers!
Thank you :-) Filled up the pockets at the beach today! 💎
Curious if you also seen any of the fossil leaves and trees?
The video about moose coming back to the area they were born
and more. Moose of the north!! lol Moose Milking
No worries. Glad to hear you filled up the pockets at the beach! Nice! Excited for the moose video... Did not see any fossil leaves or trees in Antarctica, but there are some areas in other parts of the world where I have before. Leaves are special as they are so fragile. Moose of the north!!! Thanks for the link!
ps. the title of the video is .... awesome!
Have you considered the possibility of some form of seal-based catapult or trebuchet?
Is this what you mean?
Actually, that is exactly what I was thinking about.
I know 10 km sounds like a lot, but consider that seals are pretty streamlined, and they have those cute little flippers they could use as airfoils. Combine that with a good tailwind, and there you go.
Good points! There are really good tailwinds in Antarctica (over 100 km/hr oftentimes), so that combined with a streamlined seal, and who knows!! HAHAHA.
Nice katabatic wind link too. They (the winds) are pretty full on! We were tentbound for two days straight because of a windstorm...
That'd be something to experience. I have to admit occasionally toying with the idea of studying some psychrophiles partially as an excuse to get a grant to Antarctica.
Agreed! The colder temps there I reckon will alter the aerodynamics. But ultimately make for longer trajectories... at least that what the modelling may suggests. I think it getting the grant should not be too much work...
Short answer is... I had not! But a good point. It is only 10 km from the coast so a seal catapult could be the answer here. But by who and for what reason? Thanks for your interest!
So, so jealous- that all looks like a blast!
Also, tafoni might be my favorite erosive structure.
It was a blast and glad you enjoyed the virtual trip! Full agreement with the tafoni. I'll dig up (pardon the pun) my photos as there are some crazy-huge tafoni I photographed that are pretty interesting... Cheers @mountawashere!
Cool, can't wait!
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I hope you continue to do more of these! I knew there was a couple of volcanoes in Antarctica as I actually remember the Air NZ incident with Mt Erebus where a coordinate was transposed in the flight path causing the aircraft to crash into the mountain. It seems like a lot of the volcano's there have not been studied much judging by the number of question marks and dashes in the wikipedia list of volcanos in Antarctica !
For sure and thanks for your interest! Yeah the Mt Erebus disaster was a big deal and sad story. Good points with the volcanoes as well and thanks for the link. Agreed that there is tons of uncertainty regarding where they are and how active they are. Importantly, a big question is, well - just how many sub-icecap volcanoes are there? Likely many.... Thanks again!