Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

two beneath the water’s surface and there were hundreds of these freshwater pools.
The slopes from the crags behind were also in constant movement, with soil
polygons and streams. Moisture was just below the surface and in places springs
emerged. It was here that isolated moss communities and a few lichens are to be
seen, including Nostoc, the benthic alga in the shallow spring pools.
For the most part the slopes seemed devoid of life, but closer inspection showed
small patches of moss in the hollows between stones, or even under stones, where
the moister microclimate was favourable or dew could form and trickle down. It was
clearly a desert, warmed by much solar radiation in summer. Some of the more
stable pools in the 'moraine' had aquatic mosses growing luxuriantly at quite shallow
depths, also or alternatively mats of benthic algae. And I noticed abundant tiny red
copepods - Pseudoboeckella. One puzzle is how the copepod exists in the main
Ablation Lake under 3 metres of ice, apparently without phytoplankton. However,
about 20% of incident light penetrates, so there might be some phystoplankton there.
The copepods in the main lake are smaller than those in the pools though. Clearly a
factor of primary importance was the instability of the ground, affecting both
terrestrial and freshwater life.
Another point of interest was the successful breeding of a pair of skuas which had
raised two chicks that season; I saw one of them myself, now large and mobile but
not yet flying. They looked like the subspecies skua, rather than mackormicki.
Ablation Lake is about 80 miles from the sea at the northern end of the Sound, but
there were some local colonies of snow petrels and the skuas feed on them. Wilson's
petrels were occasionally seen and at the camp we were shown the remains of an
Antarctic petrel and a silver-grey petrel killed by skuas. Penguins had occasionally
been seen in the Sound, up to 100 miles from the nearest open water and looking
quite healthy.
We left them at about 6 o’clock after a very interesting visit and called in at
Spartan Cwm to see the set-up there. Graham Tourney and Roger Barker
(respectively Glaciologist and Adelaide Cook helping out) were living and working
in a small caboose. This seemed very small for the job, with living quarters for two
about 7 x 8 ft and the instrument section opening out of this about 8 x 3 ft; there was
very little room to move. A second caboose was to be provided which could be used
for living quarters, the other dedicated to equipment and stores. Graham showed me
round outside. The instrument array was quite impressive - 5 anemometers at
different heights, temperature sensors at various heights, solar radiation albedo
recorders, all recording on multi-channel chart recorders in the caboose. The two
wind generators seldom received enough wind to operate. But a few days ago they
had had a blow with gusts to 50-60 knots, that blew off a blade and the wind vane
from one of the generators. However, they rely on Honda petrol generators.
There was a grid of stakes over the glacier, from which the accumulation or
ablation was measured once a month. The objective of the work was to determine
the mass and energy balance of this small glacier once a month. Incidentally it was
very noticeable in this area how the snow on the north side of ridges melts in the sun,
so that they tend to be bare, in contrast to the southern slopes. We had a cup of tea
and took off again down the glacier and were back at Fossil Bluff in 10 minutes. The
fog lifted during the next morning so that we could see possibly 50 miles down the
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