Critter-finding mission to Antarctica’s Larsen C iceberg scrapped
Too much ice prevented the research vessel from reaching the calving site
by Carolyn Gramling
7:00am, March 3, 2018
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.â€
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/antarctica-larsen-c-iceberg-mission-scrapped
