Birth of an iceberg - calving new scenery.

East Bay before.

East Bay after 29th November

The gap remaining after calving.

Normally one packs and goes somewhere else to get a change of scenery. However on the morning of the 29th November when Mawson station staff came down for breakfast and looked out on the familiar view across the sea ice of East Bay it was all different. Where previously there was a clear view to the east toward Macey Island out across the sea ice, today there were new icebergs and a tumbled mass of ice around their edges. 

The leading edge of the outflow of ice. Photo C Wilson.

Jumble of rafted ice on the shore

Stranded ice

Algae on underside of sea ice

The low islands close to station now had towering icebergs behind them. All this change had happened silently overnight as a massive slab of ice calved off the nearby glacier. As it broke into pieces, large and small, the larger ones became icebergs. Their orientation was random some tilted, some turned over and others retained their balance. However the amount of smaller pieces of ice the size of a large family car that are now strewn around the edges of these new icebergs is surprising. The extent of the new ice field is in the order of a square kilometre.

Marooned Antarctic Cod

Witness marks from tsunami.

Stranded Starfish

With such a large piece of ice crashing into the water there must have been some wave motion that would have radiated from the site right? Well a small tsunami went unnoticed however evidence along the shore close to the station in a direct line from the fall indicated that the water level reached about 50cm above the previous sea ice level. The wave action violently broke the ice along the shore and rafted it up in jumbled piles. Marine animals were washed ashore and the Skuas were eagerly searcing the edges for food. There was an Antarctic cod and a starfish stranded by the retreating wash.