COLDEX 2023-24 Field Season is a Success!

The Allan Hills ice coring team has safely returned home, and the airborne team is packing up and preparing to leave Antarctica.

Friday, January 12 update:

COLDEX Airborne yesterday completed its allocation of flight hours, with the last three full flights dedicated to connecting to regions in the upper Byrd Glacier catchment that may contain a shallowing of ice stratigraphy hinting at accessible old ice.  We also conducted a short mop up flight with remaining hours to address gaps in existing coverage.  Our team is beginning to redistribute: Singh, Kaundinya and Young have returned to McMurdo on a LC-130 flight, with Paden and Ng returning to McMurdo Saturday on a transit flight with the Kenn Borek crew, and Kerr holding down the fort at Pole until Monday (hopefully).  Cargo may be a challenge given limitations in airlift between McMurdo and Pole.  The next big task is reconfiguring the aircraft and packing the equipment in time to make the incoming cargo ship.

All in all we have had a very successful season - with 17 flights completed in what was 17 scheduled flight days, completing 80 hours of flying out of South Pole Station.  On Sunday the 7th we also ran a successful open house at the aircraft for the South Pole population.  We would like to thank South Pole for all their assistance in this very successful survey campaign. - Duncan Young, University of Texas faculty member and Science co-lead for base operations and flight planning for project I-185

Completed survey flights in yellow (last years coverage in blue, clean air sector in black, background topography is the REMA DEM by the Polar Geospatial Center).

Shravan Kaundinya and Shivaningi Singh departing South Pole Station (Credit: Duncan Young)

Shravan Kaundinya explains the KU radar to the Station population (Credit: John Paden)