{"id":196,"date":"2015-11-22T20:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T01:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/?p=196"},"modified":"2015-11-23T23:25:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T04:25:34","slug":"south-fork-reconnaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/2015\/11\/22\/south-fork-reconnaissance\/","title":{"rendered":"South Fork Reconnaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although Jay has been to South Fork each of his eight seasons in Antarctica, the rest of us needed to get a feel for the valley. We spent Saturday hiking a ways east of Don Juan Pond, and then back west up the main part of the viscous flow lobe we\u2019re camped on. Don Juan Pond is ringed by salt crusts, making boulders stand out white against the lake when the light hits them right. It\u2019s quite beautiful. Orange-ish areas near the lake are thin little algal mats.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_197\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove05.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-197\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-197\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove05-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Looking across Don Juan Pond onto the viscous flow lobe and our campsite.\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove05-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove05-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove05-500x281.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-197\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Looking across Don Juan Pond onto the viscous flow lobe and our campsite.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As you travel east from Don Juan, you go up a fairly gentle slope, encountering several other ponds along the way. One pond was frozen, although Jay tells us that usually it\u2019s salty enough that it remains unfrozen in November. Another pond was almost completely dried up, with only a tiny liquid puddle about a meter across hiding under a boulder.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_198\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove06.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-198\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-198\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove06-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Frozen pond east of Don Juan.\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove06-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove06-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove06-500x281.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-198\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Frozen pond east of Don Juan.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>West of Don Juan is the steeper, much more boulder-rich surface of the flow lobe. It\u2019s rough hiking, though not nearly as bad as the treacherously wobbly footing at Sollas Glacier. You\u2019re surrounded by extremely steep cliffs, with bedrock looming vertically above scree slopes. There\u2019s certainly plenty of sediment coming off of the cliffs to keep adding to the flow lobe.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_199\" style=\"width: 586px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove07.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-199\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove07-576x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Looking toward the Asgards from South Fork\u2019s main viscous flow lobe.\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove07-576x1024.jpg 576w, https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2015\/11\/SFmove07-169x300.jpg 169w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-199\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Looking toward the Asgards from South Fork\u2019s main viscous flow lobe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We\u2019ll spend the next two or so weeks here, and then this field season is done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although Jay has been to South Fork each of his eight seasons in Antarctica, the rest of us needed to get a feel for the valley. We spent Saturday hiking a ways east of Don Juan Pond, and then back &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/2015\/11\/22\/south-fork-reconnaissance\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/278"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/antarctica-2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}