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Ice. (2010-02-10)
The ability or in-ability of ice!
To most, the mention of ice conjures up the grandeur of the North West passage, of giant glaciers, the north and South Pole. None have really looked at a cube of ice and wondered about the power locked up in this cold and apparently innocent cube.
My fascination with ice began during the great drought and depression way back in 1934, when as child I would accompany my brothers over to the railway siding and collect the mail, fresh food, milk if any and ice from the train which came from Narrandera once a week.
This block of ice measuring approximately 36x14x8 inches was sealed in a large Hessian bag packed with sawdust for insulation. Once home it was cleaned, cut into smaller blocks and placed in ornate ice chests. It had me baffled, why was it so cold? If I touched it with my tongue it would stick to it, yet s few days later when I went look at it …it wasn’t there. All this had me tossed.
Later becoming familiar with this change of temperature and the formation of ice, I was most fortunate to experience its creation and raw power in Antarctica, the birthplace of millions of cubic feet of ice, blue, fast and brash. In 1970, as a member of the twelfth Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE) to the Base of Davis at the very foot of the Indian Ocean, I experienced the awesome power of the ice as over many weeks we pushed our way through this vast pack which extended out some 400 nautical miles. In Ice Berg Alley, some 57 miles off the Australian Base of Mawson I was the first man to go over the side and stand for the first time on the fast ice. Using a Stuhl power drill I drilled holes in the ice required to place steel poles on which were used to moor vessel.
On arrival at Davis, I was elected leader of the coming spring traverse destined to proceed 200 miles inland measure existing strain grids and put in the last 5 grids one every 10 miles to complete the glaciology grid. This area above 8000 feet circumnavigated the feeder area behind the Sørdsal Glacier. Here at this altitude the surface of the continent was blue ice, hard as marble and with the ever moving drift running past on it never ending race around the curvature of the earth, indescribably beautiful Sadly we could not complete the traverse as the third stage had not been laid down and we did not have enough grid poles to do that. Later a part tried to cross the glacier but failed and I had to climb onto it and recover our equipment.
With the coming of winter, I marvelled at the formation and strength of the sea ice. I watched it form from audibly tinkling sea crystals to pancake ice swirling around and around with the tide until the creamy honey like consistency of the sea stopped moving and it turned to ice. As the sea expanded it crawled up the beach area and a few miles offshore it cracked and in two halves crawled up over Sabrina Island, Photos of this exist.
In 1973 enroute to Davis station for the second tour, as I now had ice experience I was invited by Dr Phil Sulzberger (dec) to accompany him by helicopter , locate and place a drift some onto a large iceberg at approximately latitude 62 deg. south. Once the aircraft were assembled we lifted off and trailing the sonde beneath the Hugh 500 helicopter after a short period found this huge iceberg several miles long and 1 ½ wide by approximately 1100 feet in hight (1000 being below the water line).
As the surface was laced with tiny crevasses seen and unseen we roped up and safely deployed the unit and switched it on to the South East Indian satellite to record the drift of this monster. Photo’s of the flight available. We became I believe the first two Australian expeditioners to carry out such a feat.
All this was now a long way from the block of ice in the sawdust but I now appreciate the power locked up inside it.
IGH
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