Core delivery!

Meet Phil (left), ANDRILL curator, and Josh, computer wiz. What would we do without them... They certainly keep us out of trouble and busy in the core lab! The curatorial team takes care of the conditions of the core, sampling, and high resolution images, which are processed by Josh and made available to us. Today they brought us some very interesting sections of core with much variety, including these laminated beds in the photo below. Interestingly: we are only 25-35 m below the seabed and we see no sign of glaciers, although we can't say how significant that is right now. There is still quite a lot of volcanic material.
Yesterday I climbed Observation Hill for the first time. From the hill you have a 360 degree view and you can see the active volcano Mt. Erebus, Scott base (the Kiwi base) and the Transantarctic Mountains. On the summit is a cross in memory of Scott and his party who died on their way back from the South Pole in 1911. While I was on a summit, I heard a strange sound, like thunder, and I saw a larger cloud coming off Mt. Erebus: a possible small eruption? It is possible according to Kurt and he notified his colleague from the volcano observatory in the U.S. who will come down here shortly.