kong
01-11-2012, 11:17 PM
25-foot ice ridge near Alaska city awaiting fuel
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A researcher assisting in a Russian tanker's mission to deliver fuel to Nome has discovered a 25-foot ice pressure ridge at the entrance to the harbor of the iced-in city in western Alaska.
The top of the ridge sits just a few feet above the frozen surface but the rest extends well down into the ocean, said Andy Mahoney of the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute.
The ridge is too big for the tanker to get past but it shouldn't prevent the 370-foot tanker from delivering 1.3 million gallons of much-needed fuel to Nome. The tanker is equipped with a hose more than a mile long for offloading.
Nome and its 3,500 residents missed their final pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a big storm swept western Alaska in the fall. Without the delivery, the city could run short of fuel before a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.
Researchers in Nome using a drone located what they suspect is an even larger pressure ridge further out, said Greg Walker, unmanned aircraft program manager for the university.
The drone, weighing about 2.5 pounds and looking like a smoke detector with wings that sits on spidery tripod legs, is equipped with a camera that is sending images of the ice back to researchers sitting in a heated vehicle onshore.
Researchers are using the drone to provide a large picture of the ice in hopes of helping get the tanker as close to shore as possible, Walker said. The pictures also will be used to figure out the best way to lay the hose on the ice.
Researchers are "basically now trying to get a big resolution mosaic of several images of the ice in and around where the ship hopes to get to," he said.
The drone is being flown on 20-minute missions ranging from 10 feet above the ice to 320 feet. The images caught by the drone's camera can be instantly viewed on a tablet-type computer screen.
"The ice ridges up and folds over on itself and cracks and creates these ridge lines," Walker said.
The tanker is being accompanied in the Bering Sea by the Healy, the Coast Guard's only functioning icebreaker.
As the tanker approaches Nome, the pressure ridges actually might come in handy as they are natural fault lines, Walker said. If the tanker can break the ice away from the ridges, it could open up a pathway through the ice and toward shore.
The Coast Guard said the icebreaker and the tanker on Wednesday were in densely concentrated ice in the Bering Sea about 95 miles from Nome. The vessels made nine miles on Tuesday but drifted with the ice when the vessels were at rest for a gain of just six miles, Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley said.
Ice conditions were slightly improved Wednesday.
"Once again it will all boil down to how the day goes," Mosley said.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A researcher assisting in a Russian tanker's mission to deliver fuel to Nome has discovered a 25-foot ice pressure ridge at the entrance to the harbor of the iced-in city in western Alaska.
The top of the ridge sits just a few feet above the frozen surface but the rest extends well down into the ocean, said Andy Mahoney of the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute.
The ridge is too big for the tanker to get past but it shouldn't prevent the 370-foot tanker from delivering 1.3 million gallons of much-needed fuel to Nome. The tanker is equipped with a hose more than a mile long for offloading.
Nome and its 3,500 residents missed their final pre-winter delivery of fuel by barge when a big storm swept western Alaska in the fall. Without the delivery, the city could run short of fuel before a barge delivery becomes possible in late spring.
Researchers in Nome using a drone located what they suspect is an even larger pressure ridge further out, said Greg Walker, unmanned aircraft program manager for the university.
The drone, weighing about 2.5 pounds and looking like a smoke detector with wings that sits on spidery tripod legs, is equipped with a camera that is sending images of the ice back to researchers sitting in a heated vehicle onshore.
Researchers are using the drone to provide a large picture of the ice in hopes of helping get the tanker as close to shore as possible, Walker said. The pictures also will be used to figure out the best way to lay the hose on the ice.
Researchers are "basically now trying to get a big resolution mosaic of several images of the ice in and around where the ship hopes to get to," he said.
The drone is being flown on 20-minute missions ranging from 10 feet above the ice to 320 feet. The images caught by the drone's camera can be instantly viewed on a tablet-type computer screen.
"The ice ridges up and folds over on itself and cracks and creates these ridge lines," Walker said.
The tanker is being accompanied in the Bering Sea by the Healy, the Coast Guard's only functioning icebreaker.
As the tanker approaches Nome, the pressure ridges actually might come in handy as they are natural fault lines, Walker said. If the tanker can break the ice away from the ridges, it could open up a pathway through the ice and toward shore.
The Coast Guard said the icebreaker and the tanker on Wednesday were in densely concentrated ice in the Bering Sea about 95 miles from Nome. The vessels made nine miles on Tuesday but drifted with the ice when the vessels were at rest for a gain of just six miles, Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley said.
Ice conditions were slightly improved Wednesday.
"Once again it will all boil down to how the day goes," Mosley said.