QUESTION:
How thick is the ice you're living on?        
                Benjamin L., Ridgeview Middle School


ANSWER from DEANE RINK, PTK Field Producer
            Palmer Station, Antarctica
            Sat, 1 Feb 1997 19:38:10 -0500


Hi Ben,

Here at Palmer, we don't actually live on ice, although a large 
glacier looms behind the station.  We live on a small ice-free spit 
of land right at sea level.  The dock where ships come in is about 
thirty feet from our front door.  Sometimes icebergs of various sizes 
float into our harbor, making travel by water around this area 
treacherous or impossible, but these bergs usually clear out during 
the southern summer.  If I was living at the South Pole, I'd be 
living on an ice sheet over two miles thick, but here at Palmer, on 
Anvers Island, in the Antarctic Peninsula, temperatures are much more 
moderate and ice conditions are nowhere near as intense.

Deane Rink