XXXIII Expedition
The XXXIII expedition was the second of ICE-VOLC project. The scientific activities dealt with:
• Geochemistry
• Volcanology
• Seismology
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Geochemistry
The geochemical investigation performed during 28 October- 23 November 2017 mainly focused on the fumaroles and Ice Caves of both Mt. Melbourne and Rittmann. The following activities were performed:
- Thermal analysis of the fumarole areas.
- Extended the exploration and mapping of MC3 Ice Cave on Mt. Melbourne and R5 on Mt. Rittmann.
- Installation of a temporary geochemical-meteo station in the Aurora Ice Cave, to test the possibility of continuously monitoring the gas and heat fluxes released by the cave.
- Installation of 2 microloggers to evaluate the heat flux from soil in Aurora Ice Cave.
- Download of almost 1 year long air temperature dataset from the micrologger inside Aurora Cave, and logging restart.
- 3D experimental survey of a portion of tunnel in Aurora.
- Collection of 2 samples of gas in MC3 Ice Cave
- FTIR and UV measurements of gas in both volcanoes
- Investigation of Mt. Rittman's plumes using a visible and NIR sun-photometer.
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Volcanology
The main volcanological activities during the XXXIII expedition were:
- Identification of ash layers within the glaciers around Mt. Melbourne
- Collection of 4 samples of ash from Backer Rocks cliff on Mt. Melbourne.
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Seismology
The main seismological activities were:
- Installation of a permanent seismo-acoustic station on Mt. Rittmann
- Installation of two temporary seismic station on Mt. Rittmann
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