Enlarge / The Halley VI Research Station prior to relocation. (credit: British Antarctic Survey)
Running a research station in the extreme conditions of Antarctica comes with a long list of logistical challenges. Keeping people alive is obviously job one, but the buildings themselves need looking after, too—especially if you’re trying to maintain a station on a floating ice shelf.
And a floating ice shelf is where the UK’s Halley Research Station has been since 1956, or rather, where all six incarnations of the Halley Research Station have been. In 2002, when the UK realized that Halley V was doomed to reach the dangerous end of the floating conveyor belt of ice soon, its researchers opted for a change from the series of simple, temporary structures they had built. Instead, they designed a set of portable buildings. Looking a bit like a giant cross between Lego bricks and a caterpillar, Halley VI is a series of buildings on stilts and skis that can be hauled around with a big enough tractor.
Soon after Halley VI was installed in its new home in 2012, a large crack in the ice shelf that had long been dormant started growing again. A few years of study led to the selection of a new site 23 kilometers away, which seven of the eight building modules have now been dragged to.
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Source: Ars Technica – Antarctic science station will empty for winter due to ice shelf cracks