iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

#A23a iceberg continues its disintegration north of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, with a brilliant image from today finishing off this timelapse of Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery over the last few weeks! It's always interesting to track these bergs out of Antarctica and into warmer waters 🌊🌴

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

I'm just starting an update of BAS's published "Adelaide Island and Arrowsmith Peninsula" map. One of the first things I always work on is creating new hillshades & contours from the latest elevation data. These in-progress images show some of the interesting islands & landscapes in the region! 🏔️🧊

A grey-scale hillshade of Pourquoi-Pas Island in Antarctica. Mountain ridges can be seen, as well as glacier flowlines. The source data is REMA v2.

A grey-scale hillshade of a section of Adelaide Island, Antarctica. Rothera Point is covered in the extent. Large mountain ranges can be seen, along with glaciers and ice piedmonts. The source data is REMA v2.

A grey-scale hillshade of Horseshoe and Lagotellerie islands in Antarctica. A few mountains can be seen on the south of the island. The source data is REMA v2.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

South Georgia in winter 😍 These SAR and optical images show the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. SAR imagery allows us to see these locations through winter and cloud-covered days, and then the optical imagery adds extra content when it's not cloudy or dark!

A grey-scale SAR image of South Georgia. Mountains can be seen on land, and movements and currents can be seen in the water, affected by wind. The image contains the text "Copernicus Sentinel-1 image acquired 6th July 2025, accessed from icelogistics.info".

An optical RGB image of South Georgia. Mountains can be seen on land, mostly covered in snow and ice. Cloud covers the south-west half of the image. The image contains the text "Copernicus Sentinel-2 image acquired 31st May 2025, accessed from Copernicus Browser".

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I've picked up my new Alexander Island map today after a month or two of other work, and while double checking some data, I noticed that this section of ice shelf has retreated by over 1.5 km in places since I updated the data in November. Can things just stop melting?! Keeps me busy for sure!

A simple map showing a Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite image from 27th Feb 2025. Lines are overlaid on the image with a red line showing the ice shelf front from November 2024, purple lines showing the grounding line, and blue lines showing the ice coastline.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Lovely image from the NOAA-20 satellite yesterday showing the location of grounded A23a iceberg close to the island of South Georgia 😍 It's still crazy to me that this iceberg has been in the Southern Ocean since 1986, taking a few little pauses along its way to this current position! @bas.ac.uk

A satellite image showing a large iceberg as a big white block, and an island in the NE corner with blue-ish sediment blooms coming away from the glaciers on land. There are clouds in the south/bottom of the image.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

This is a map I first started about 4 years ago, and it’s been put down and picked back up about 5 times since then (we’ve all had projects like this!) but I’m so glad to see it finally released! The front cover shows some of the very varied terrain that has been mapped 😍

The front cover of the map, showing a landscape photo of Signy Island with Orwell Glacier in the foreground, looking through Three Lakes Valley to Coronation Island in the distance.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Beautiful Sentinel-2 imagery of George VI Ice Shelf with lots of meltwater from yesterday. The patterns that this water produces is like artwork! Fossil Bluff is shown in the second image, and Hodgson Lake shown in the last - a former subglacial lake sealed under ice thick perennial ice ❄️

A satellite image showing lots of meltwater pool on an ice shelf in the centre, and rocky outcrops on the left (west) on Alexander Island, and Palmer Land on the right (east).

Hodgson Lake, Citadel Bastion and Corner Cliffs on Alexander Island.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Happy #PenguinAwarenessDay! I think it’s a rule that everyone who works at BAS has to like penguins, so to spread their cuteness, here’s a couple of my favourite photos from an amazing trip to the Falkland Islands a few years ago 🐧

A very fluffy brown King penguin chick with more adults and chicks behind

King penguins on a white sandy beach with a blue sky

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

I don't get to work in the Arctic as much as I'd like, but someone requested an image of the Qaqortoq region of Greenland today and I found this beautiful Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from a few months ago 😍 There are just so many interesting features to see!

A satellite image showing fjords with turquoise coloured water full of glacial flour flowing from the land, interesting glacial ice formations in the top left, and many brown and green islands and peninsulas.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

I'm currently trying to figure out the 'best' grounding line to use on our new Alexander Island map. Grounding lines are notoriously difficult and these images show 3 potential sources against a REMA hillshade. I'm redrawing the shape of the land so it's important to show as accurately as possible!

A greyscale hillshade of land and ice shelf with three differently coloured lines (purple, red and blue) showing possible options for the grounding line. The region is Haydn Island.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

To add another contender for 'the world's most southerly island', what about Buckley Island at 85°S? This is the most southerly named island in the SCAR CGA, but surely not a real island as it's well within the grounded area of Antarctica! 🏝️❄️ Map extract taken from maps.apps.pgc.umn.edu/id/344

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

These draft extracts of our new Alexander Island map show 5 new places recently named - Isopleth Island, recently detached from the main island, Mount Meridian, the tallest point in the Colbert Mtns, Projection Rocks, plotting in deep water and so easily missed, and Raster and Vector islands ❤️ 🗺️

An extract of a topographic map with blue sea and white land. Multiple place names are shown in the extract, including Isopleth Island, Cape Brown and Hampton Glacier.

An extract of a topographic map with white shaded land, with a mountain range in the centre. Multiple place names are shown in the extract, including Colbert Mountains, Mount Meridian and Vivaldi Glacier.

An extract of a topographic map with blue sea and white land. Multiple place names are shown in the extract, including Johansen Islands, Projection Rocks, Raster Island and Vector Island.

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Laura Gerrish @lauragerrish.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Hi everyone! First post here, so I thought I’d share some photos of two maps I’m working on at the moment - Alexander Island and The South Orkney Islands. These two maps will join our series of published maps at BAS, with the South Orkneys map heading to the printers very soon!

Two paper maps laid on a table with blue bathymetry and white land shading

A zoomed in photo of a section of one of the maps, with place names shown including ‘Beethoven Peninsula’

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