Just behind Mawson Station, the great Antarctic Ice Plateau rises up. Over 97% of Antarctica is covered by this huge ice plateau, and in some places it is up to 4 kilometres thick. The weight of the ice is so immense that in many valleys, the bedrock of the Antarctic continent is below sea level simply due to the gravity of the ice above. All the ice on the continent is slowly running down towards the oceans in huge glacial flows, a process that can take hundreds of thousands of years when you consider that the centre of the continent receives the equivalent of just 50mm of precipitation per year.
The Ice Plateau is a rather dangerous place to travel. As the ice crests ridges, it opens up huge crevasses that can swallow even the largest vehicles and can be as deep as several hundred metres. Even worse, they can often be covered by a thin layer of snow, making them invisible to the hapless traveller. For this reason, known (relatively) safe routes have been marked out for travel across the Plateau behind Mawson using GPS fixes, drums (as in this photo), and bamboo canes.

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© Ray Hegarty 2003.