Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen (updated with pix and video)

From Mindy, dated 16 January:

A bittersweet wake up this morning as everyone realizes this will be our last zodiac landing day.  We are sailing along at about 10 knots speed, with negligible wind.  The air temperature is 3.5 degrees C, water near 2 degrees C, barometer at 988 and clear skies.  Looks like the weather will be kind to us again today with sun and balmy (once again, I want it on record that my wife called 2C "balmy" - Ed.) southern ocean summer winds.

The beach at Binn's Bluff
(click to enlarge)

Bouma and flame (click to enlarge)

For our morning landing, we set off on the Hurd Peninsula to Binn's Bluff in False Bay.  This is a relatively out of the way beach with not much wildlife, so it doesn't get much human attention.  Many well-travelled Antarctic experts on our ship have never landed here.  On the beach we found some copper deposits on large boulders.  We also found some pretty nice examples of Bouma sequences in turbidites (a Bouma sequence is a characteristic pattern in rocks that indicates a series of underwater landslides over time).  There were some nice flame structures in the sediments (good "way up" indicators), and even a dike about 20-30 cm wide.

I'm "lichen" it (click to enlarge)

Moss on the cape
(click to enlarge)

There were some really nice looking lichens on the rocks along the beach and on the marine terrace.  A fellow passenger, Cath, taught me about the three types of lichens: crustos (painted), folios (leafy), and fruiticos (bushy) (good to know for all of us who usually just say "moss" - Ed.).  In False Bay, there are two of the three kinds of lichens growing on nearly all of the outcrops (fruiticos and crustos).  There are also some really cute little tufts of grass known as hair grass.

Chalcedony
(click to enlarge)

Pearl Wort and Deschampia
(click to enlarge)

In the afternoon we landed at Hannah Point on Livingston Island, which is one of the most biodiverse places in terms of wildlife on the South Shetland Islands.  At the beach we could see the only two flowering plants in Antarctica (Pearl Wort and Deschampia Grass).  The volcanic rocks in the area had a mineral called Chalcedony in them (pretty unusual here).  Further down the beach from our landing site there is a grouping of large boulders where everyone collects any fossils they've found.

Collection of Specimens (click to enlarge)

 It is against the law to take fossils from the beach (and in fact if any of us on the tour took fossils, it would be our tour organizer who would be prosecuted under U.S. law).  The fossils were amazing!  Petrified wood, fern leaves, marine fossils, etc.

Gentoo nest (click to enlarge)

Elephant seal wrinkles (click to enlarge)

Whale bones (click to enlarge)

The animal life at Hannah Point was quite fun to see one last time on our trip.  There were penguins and chicks (with lots of penguin poop!), elephant seals lounging (and making foul noises), and skua with skua babies.  We even saw a skua steal a penguin chick and take it over to the nest to feed the skua babies (disturbing, but at the same time amazing to see the circle of life as they say) (cue Disney music - Ed.).

Copper schist
(click to enlarge)

Fern imprints (click to enlarge)

Petrified wood (click to enlarge)

Back to the ship for warm drinks and a hot dinner.  It was sad knowing that this was our last landing, but happy because we had such a wonderful day.  The sun was shining, the seas were relatively calm, and the winds were not that bad.  In passing conversation, I heard Ted (our expedition leader) saying that luck actually happens all the time, you just have to be ready for it.  What a great way to capture our trip and the serendipity of all of us geologists and scientists being together here!

Last Look (click to enlarge)

At about 10:30pm, we were catching our last glimpse of the South Shetland Islands.  Smith Island is about 7000 feet tall, and made of blueschist (one of the rock types that eluded us earlier in the expedition).  This island was only mapped a few years ago, and Ian Dalziel told us how rare it is to actually have weather good enough to see the island.  The sunset was beautiful, and silhouetted the snow-covered peaks in a beautiful pink light (with the moon rising to the east).


And now it is two days at sea while we make our way to Ushuaia, Argentina for flights homeward.