January 25, 2012 Archives

Saturday, 7 January 2012

Two hours after writing the last sentence, Adrian and Fiona returned to camp with mites. It’s alive! Amongst melt streams at the face of a hanging glacier halfway up the valley, the geologist and soil scientist found the first reported invertebrates in the southern PCMs. Mites are less than a millimetre in size and quite difficult to spot. After the first discovery, we have found them at a number of different sites throughout the area, liquid water seeming to be the major determinant of mite presence.

Below: Adrian walking back into Accidental Valley after a day of mite hunting to the north.

Saturday, 24 December 2011

 

 Made it home last night at about 9pm. We left Scott base for the airfield pegaus at about 12.30pm and after seeing a couple of Emperor penguins along the road we made it to the staging area. After waiting for a couple of hours, seeing the C17 fly in and be unloaded at about 4am we were shuffled into the plane eventually getting to Christchurch around 10am.