Blog Entry 02 18 10 No one can say that we didn’t try

We tried and tried, but the spirits of the ice world would not let us through their door and to where we wanted to drill on the shelf.  It was here in the shallow environs that we hoped to be able to recover proximal records of the evolution of the ice sheet during the transition from the greenhouse world to icehouse world. 

The track map of the ship over the past two days.  No one can say that we did not try our best to get there!!

However, after numerous attempts at trying to reach this most precise site, we had to turn around and head out to deeper waters where the ice had not reached.  It was an odd looking scene.  Near the coast, the waters were open, with only occasional icebergs and growlers (small bits of bergs).  However to the east are the large ice shelves and thick pack ice that as the summer warms the icy seas, the pack ice breaks up and begins to spread out like a long tongue eastward owing to the prevailing winds that affect this coastline.

This is a satellite picture of the coastline of Antarctica (the white are in the lower half of the pic) and the various catogories of sea ice concentrations.  Our drilling sites are shown with the bubble inserts and arrows.  As you can see, the area labeled E (= lots of ice!) was right on our sites called 9B and 8A. 

So in the end the decision was made to head out to the sites with the younger age targets.  The one constellation prize was that we were able to view the coast of Antarctica one more time, with the glorious icebergs lining our way. Everyone was out enjoying these moments even as we knew that the Greenhouse world sediments on the shelf will most probably have to wait for another expedition.