Thirty-six years after he first went
there as a young meteorologist, BBC Weather's Peter Gibbs returned to
the current, sixth incarnation of the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station. There, on "a day with no horizon", he explored the chasm threatening to cast it adrift.
The
Brunt Ice Shelf feels like another planet even on the sunniest of days,
but when the cloud closes in it turns downright eerie as sky, snow and
ice blend into one diffuse white light.
Approaching the chasm,
the only hint of this 100m-wide gash is a neon glint of blue from the
depths of a crevasse in its far wall.