A Successful Trip to the Coast
At 10 o'clock on Thurday morning, a team led by Alain Hubert left Utsteinen to set up the first base camp of the BELISSIMA project at the coast, some 200km north…
News from Antarctica
Interested in what's happening down at Princess Elisabeth? News from the field are posted here regularily to keep you updated about what's going on.
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Straight Through the White-Out
Our first Mission this year was to drive the Japanese to their first base camp, 76km away from the station. What should have been a simple task turned into quite…
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Fresh Water for Everyone
After landing in Utsteinen, the team took three days to free the snow melter, a crucial unit. Talking with Jacob Bossaer, a chemical engineer and a new member to the…
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Bad Weather, Good Spirits
This year, the BELARE team's not lucky with the weather. They were hardly done with the 850 tons of accumulated snow, when a furious storm unleashed. While these storms usually last…
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All Systems up and Running!
Upon arriving at Utsteinen, the priorities were clear for the team: start the bulldozers, prepare the generator, and set the station ready for electrical start-up. First opened at 1pm (CET),…
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Preparing the Relaunch of the Station’s Systems
During the winter, Princess Elisabeth Antarctica's core systems are either idle or functioning at very low intensity. At the beginning of a new season, all systems have to be thoroughly…
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Arrival of the Japanese Scientists
Today, a team of geologists from the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) in Tokyo arrived with two tons of material. On top of carrying on with digging out the…
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A Whole Lot of Snow
Flying into Antarctica from Cape Town (South Africa), the first members of the 2011-2012 BELARE Expedition (Belgian Antarctic Research) set foot in Utsteinen on November 16th after a stop at…
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Loading Operations at Wervik
Extreme expeditions require exceptional logistics, and this is especially true for Antarctica. Preparing the 2011-2012 season, a special operations team packed and loaded the freight cargo to be shipped to…
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Microbiologists Identify Sør Rondanes as Bacteria Hotbed
Scientists Karolien Peeters and Anne Willems from Ghent University and Damien Ertz from the National Botanic Garden of Belgium, who were down in Antarctica in January 2007, recently published a study…