The 2012 Weddell seal population study remote field camp is now in place on the frozen sea ice at Big Razorback Island in Erebus Bay! 

In the photo below by research team member Jesse DeVoe is the equipment hut, one of several wooden structures that make up Big Razorback sea ice camp.  Parked next to the hut is a PistenBully used to travel over the sea ice to many of the field sites used by United States Antarctic Program researchers and support personnel in the McMurdo Station area.

Big Razorback Island is one of the Dellbridge Islands located off Ross Island in Erebus Bay.  The Dellbridge Islands are volcanic in origin, the remains of an old caldera, and are named after James H. Dellbridge, 2nd Engineer RN on Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition (1901-1904).

There are several Weddell seal pupping colonies located along fast ice cracks at the four Dellbridge Islands, including one of the larger seal colonies at Big Razorback Island.  The other three Dellbridge Islands with seal pupping colonies are Little Razorback Island, Tent Island, and Inaccessible Island.

Check out the image above for a better sense of where the Big Razorback field camp is located in relation to the main U.S. Antarctic Base, McMurdo Station.  This frame comes from a wonderful satellite imaging flyover created by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio; LIMA Data provided by: Patricia Vornberger (SAIC); LIMA data produced by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA.

– Mary Lynn Price