Our field work for this project will be on the Antarctic Peninsula, which is the part of the continent that sticks up towards South America.
We will be working on King George Island, which is off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. There are many research stations on King George Island belonging to many different countries. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Peru, Poland, Russia, South Korea, and Uruguay all have stations on the island.
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| Image credit: Wikimedia |
As you can see, most of the island is covered in ice. We will be living and working on the western end of the island in an area called the Fildes Peninsula. That is the brown area on the far left. The brown color means there is exposed land, not covered by ice. We will be at one of the Chilean research stations called Escudero.
You can learn more about Escudero at this website for the Chilean Antarctic Program (but you may have to ask your browser to translate it into English for you). I visited King George Island five years ago, but I was further to the north and east, near Arctowski Station. This will be my first time visiting Escudero Base. Once I see it for myself, I will tell you all about it!
Getting to Escudero will be a long journey. We will fly from the U.S. to Chile, and then from Chile to Antarctica. But we have to stop and get COVID tests at multiple stops along the way, and two different quarantines. It will take a long time, but hopefully we get there safely!
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