Field training session before the 2013-2014 antarctic season
The Annual Field Training Weekend for the Belgian Antarctic Research Expeditions took place from the 4th to the 7th of October. The participants included 14 members of the station team and two scientists. They were accompanied by four field guides, and two medical officers.
In addition to the GPS training, medical briefing and rope techniques, the team was also taken on glacier traverse of the Italian side of the Vallée Blanche, on the far side of Mont Blanc. The exercise was a good preparation for things to come, as the team learnt about progression over crevasse areas, and the use of crampons on mixed rock and ice slopes.
Towards the end of the day, a white mist blanketed the valley, creating near white out conditions, in sombre reminder of the rapid descent of whiteout conditions in the Antarctic. The team returned tired but satisfied to Brussels.
With only a few weeks to go until the first departures of the season, the pace is beginning to pick up, as the technical personnel and the scientists prepare their bags for the exodus to the South.
This season promises to be very busy, as there several new scientific activities being planned including a field campaign to install surface seismometers from the plateau to the grounding line near the coast. These are designed to detect micro quakes and to collect data on sub snow topography which could help to better localise the suture zone resulting from the tectonic collision which formed Gondwana.
Picture: Field training on the "Vallée Blanche", Italian Alps - © International Polar Foundation, Denis Lombardi