Ice Landing

After visiting the Geographic North Pole itself very early on 24 July 2019 we sailed south in search of a good floe to make a landing on. We stopped at 89 10.8N, 49 37.3E and made a landing within the large massif of old and sediment-filled ice that we passed through the previous day and which we saw at the North Pole on the previous cruise. The thickness of ice at the landing site was seen to be 200-300cm (see image)

We took the opportunity to take a closer look at the ice, measuring depth profiles across three ponds (image attached). Within an area of thicker ice in a discrete turquoise pond we had depths of up to 50cm and a freeboard of 36cm. Darker ponds that were a part of a linked system of flatter ice had freeboards of 6-10cm and depth of up to 20cm.

This dirty ice is notable for having a greater coverage of melt ponds (up to 4/10, vs 1-3/10 seen elsewhere) than other ice seen at the same latitudes. We believe this may be due to albedo effect of the dirt -- in a few ponds deep circular holes (approx. 20cm deep and 5-8cm across) with an accumulation of soil in each, were seen inside melt ponds. It appears that they are causing accelerated melting of the pond floors, and it is possible that the soil has acted as a catalyst for pond formation. Several images are attached showing these holes, showing the dirty nature of the ice and also showing a dried pond.

Comments

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