By Mike Meredith

RRS Sir David Attenborough winter cruise SD050 is currently on transit south toward Rothera and Ryder Bay, which will be our main POLOMINTS field site next summer season. During our transit, we called into Börgen Bay on Anvers Island, to take advantage of the opportunity to collect some water samples and underway ocean measurements. This is an especially interesting location for us, being where we witnessed the major glacier calving event some years ago that led to our discovery of calving-induced internal tsunamis, and the POLOMINTS project overall.

We studied the glacier in Börgen Bay for several hours while collecting measurements, during which we witnessed a significant calving event. This was surprising and fortuitous, since glacier calving is typically much more frequent in summer. We continue to learn and build up our understanding of these important dramatic events!