McMurdo Station Antarctica

A giant iceberg twice the length of Beijing's "Bird's Nest" Stadium has been spotted floating off Australia and could be headed for New Zealand, scientists said on Thursday. The ice chunk, measuring some 700 metres (2,300 feet) long with an estimated depth of 350 metres, caused a stir when it was sighted by experts based on Australia's remote Macquarie Island. "I've never seen anything like it -- we looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice," said fur seal biologist Dean Miller. Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young said the flat-topped slab could break into dozens of smaller ... Read Full Story

A large iceberg was spotted off an island about halfway between Antarctica and Australia, a rare sight in waters so far north, Australian scientists said Thursday. Australian Antarctic Division researchers working on Macquarie Island, about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) southeast of Tasmania, first saw the iceberg last Thursday about 5 miles (8 kilometers) off the northwest coast of the island. The iceberg, about 160 feet (50 meters) high and 1,640 feet (500 meters) long, is probably part of one of several larger icebergs that broke off Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf between 2000 and 2002, Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young said. Several icebergs have ... Read Full Story

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - To protect penguins on the rapidly warming Antarctic peninsula, regulators need to ensure the survival of shrimp-like krill, the base of the food chain at the bottom of the world, marine experts said on Wednesday. Whales and seals also depend on krill for food, the experts said in a telephone news briefing. The numbers of Chinstrap and Adelie penguins are declining steeply along the Antarctic peninsula, the part of the southern continent that stretches northward toward South America. This is the most dramatically warming place on the planet and a location where huge miles-wide swarms of krill historically congregated, according to ... Read Full Story

OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists are surprised at how extensively coastal ice in Antarctica and Greenland is thinning, according to a study Wednesday that could help predict rising sea levels linked to climate change. Analysis of millions of NASA satellite laser images showed the biggest loss of ice was caused by glaciers speeding up when they flowed into the sea, according to scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Bristol University. "We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline -- it's widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometers inland," said Hamish ... Read Full Story

An American working at a U.S. scientific base on the frozen continent of Antarctica has suffered heart problems and was being evacuated Monday to New Zealand, the New Zealand air force said. The man suffered cardiac problems at the McMurdo base and was being flown to a hospital in Christchurch, southern New Zealand, for treatment, New Zealand Sq. Ldr. Richard Beaton said in a statement. He had been working as part of the U.S. Antarctic Program and was in a serious but stable condition, Beaton said. The man's name and hometown were not immediately available, nor was more information about his illness. "He needed ... Read Full Story

history Operation Tabarin was a small British expedition in 1943 to establish permanently-occupied bases in the Antarctic. It was a joint undertaking by the Admiralty and the Colonial Office. At the end of the war it was renamed the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) and full control passed to the Colonial Office. At this time there were four stations, three oc.... Read Full Story

Reduced: 64% of original size [ 990 x 602 ] - Click to view full image A full moon and 25 second exposure allowed sufficient light into this photo taken at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station during the long Antarctic night in July of 2005. The new station can be seen at far left, power plant in the center and the old mechanic's garage in the lower right. Red lights are used outside during the winter darkness as their spectrum does not pollute the sky, allowing scientists to conduct astrophysical studies without artificial light interference. The green light in the sky is the aurora australis. ... Read Full Story