Arctic mapping camp abandoned over thin ice fears

According to CBC News (via Alaska Dispatch), the Canadian government has scrapped plans for an ice-borne Arctic research camp from which to base seafloor mapping expeditions. The reason? Dangerously thin ice. For the last five years, researchers have been conducting the far off-shore mapping expeditions to bolster Canadian land claims, but last year, two events gave them pause. The floe carrying their base camp developed a large crack, and in May a team of Russian scientists had to abandon their camp before its ice floe broke up. The Canadian mapping effort will still go on, but the scientists will be based on icebreakers instead of the floes next season. Read much more, here.