The last trip that we took out of CTAM was to Megadunes. This is a very interesting region of Antarctica. See a satellite image of the area at the following link.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=5641
The area is located within the East Antarctic Plateau, a large, flat ice sheet. The megadunes have been carved out of the ice by the strong katabatic winds. Due to the fact that the wavelength (the distance between the top of two dunes) is very large, the megadunes cannot be seen from the ground. Airplanes can sometimes see a slight wave in the ice, but the megadunes can only be seen clearly from satellite imagery. See the following link for more information on how the megadunes were formed.
http://nsidc.org/antarctica/megadunes/dunes.html
Therefore, as we stood at the Megadunes AWS sites, we could only see flat snow and ice in every direction. There are three AWS sites, spaced about a half a mile apart, in this region. These sites were installed a few years ago by a group that was studying how the megadunes were formed. The project is completed, so Jonathan and I removed the three stations. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos from these site (Jonathan took the pictures that day). Although, I did get a picture of a crevasse region on the flight out to the sites.
Straight lines in the ice are crevasses
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=5641
The area is located within the East Antarctic Plateau, a large, flat ice sheet. The megadunes have been carved out of the ice by the strong katabatic winds. Due to the fact that the wavelength (the distance between the top of two dunes) is very large, the megadunes cannot be seen from the ground. Airplanes can sometimes see a slight wave in the ice, but the megadunes can only be seen clearly from satellite imagery. See the following link for more information on how the megadunes were formed.
http://nsidc.org/antarctica/megadunes/dunes.html
Therefore, as we stood at the Megadunes AWS sites, we could only see flat snow and ice in every direction. There are three AWS sites, spaced about a half a mile apart, in this region. These sites were installed a few years ago by a group that was studying how the megadunes were formed. The project is completed, so Jonathan and I removed the three stations. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos from these site (Jonathan took the pictures that day). Although, I did get a picture of a crevasse region on the flight out to the sites.
Straight lines in the ice are crevasses
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