September 28 to 30 – #bestfloeever

The MOSAiC expedition is now surrounded by ice and the two icebreakers [Polarstern and Federov] are exploring potential floes to build the year long ice camp. Marc Oggier described the process for finding the #bestfloeever.

September 28

We just rammed into the southernmost floe candidate… the floe stopped the Academik Federov, but in return developed a long crack, some 100 meters long. At the second trial she halved the floe, sailing along the crack and splitting the floe like a dry piece of black spruce by an axe.

We test the strength of the floe by ramming into it. If we split the floe it is weak… Polarstern follows after us to confirm our findings by ice coring at each candidate floe.

September 30

We are still looking for the #bestfloeever. For the past day we have been on another floe for surveying. Next we are going to extend our research to the northernmost floes which were identified as candidates during the summer.

On another note, I’ve now tried the sauna three times. Each time it gets warmer. My guess is that Russian sauna temperature increases by 3.5°F degrees every 0.4°North.

Go back to MOSAiC expedition homepage.