Ryan's Crack is about 80 km long, and getting a bit longer every year. It was born in the eighties, and one day it may completely grow across our neighbouring ice shelf, Stancomb-Wills, and Stancomb-Wills will become a bigass iceberg. An iceberg that hopefully floats away from the Halley base, shown as a blip in the lower left.
Officially, one can't name a crack (or rift, or chasm, or whatever you want to call it). It's not permanent enough to merit a name, even if it's been around for decades. But still, it's how I refer to it. I believe there is nobody in the world at the moment who is more interested in this crack than me. I figure that's enough of a claim for me to immortalize myself. At least, until it splits into "Ryan's Coastline" on the south and "Ryan's Iceberg" on the north.
Except that icebergs do get official names! Although they aren't interesting. Our base was mildly threatened last year by an iceberg named "B15-L". Not exactly a good title for a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I think the iceberg-naming people should take a page from the hurricane-naming people.
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