Education
During a 12-day long field camping on a Patagonian glacier, the students learn to coexist with a natural, wild and pristine environment. First, they will learn minimal impact, safety and camping techniques in an area characterized by challenging weather. Once the team can safely navigate and interact with the terrain respectfully, students will learn the field techniques necessary to research glacial environments.
The faculty staff will be composed of researchers from Universidad de Magallanes and invited faculty from other Chilean and international Universities. A team of ten faculty/researchers, guides and assistants will be in a one-to-one ratio with a total of ten students, allowing tailored teaching and safe operations in the field.
The following sections describe each stage of the educational program.
Life in the field
The first section of the educational program on the field consists of delivering the essential knowledge for life in glacial and periglacial environments. At the base camp, we will offer workshops about:
-
Camp setup and techniques to protect the camp against the elements.
-
Use of a stove, mountain cooking techniques.
-
"Leave no trace" techniques and human waste management.
-
Use of harnesses and crampons.
-
Knots and anchor building.
-
Glacier travel and ice climbing.
-
Rope team travel.
​
The last two workshops are in preparation for activities on the glacier. Once on the glacier, there will be workshops about walking with crampons, ice climbing, rappelling, use of ascenders, crevasse rescue, roping-up, glacier travel and GPS navigation. Mountain guides with extensive experience in the Patagonian Ice Fields will teach these workshops.
PIRP 2023
PIRP 2023
PIRP 2023
PIRP 2023
Glaciological field techniques
The second section of the educational program focuses on teaching field techniques in glaciology and glacial geomorphology. The following list presents the workshops offered in previous field campaigns. Most of them are taught all campaigns; others depend on participating faculty. Therefore, new workshops could be added to take advantage of visiting faculty backgrounds:
​
-
Use of GNSS receivers (data acquisition and processing).
-
Installation of GNSS bases (for positioning and GNSS-IR).
-
Installation and measurement of ablation stakes.
-
Use of ice augers and steam drills (Heucke).
-
Use of ground penetrating radars (GPR).
-
Use and servicing of Automatic Weather Stations.
-
Stream flow measurement by area-velocity and salt dilution methods.
-
Photogrammetry: ground-based and aerial UAV surveys (data acquisition and processing).
-
Use of echo sounders and manned and unmanned bathymetric surveys.
-
Use of hydrophones.
-
Tree sampling for dendrochronology studies.
-
Use of geophones, seismometers and infrasound sensors.
-
Cosmogenic isotopes rock sampling for rock exposure dating.
-
Measurements of rock hardness with Schmidt hammer for relative surface dating.
-
Use of satellite and radio (VHF/UHF) communication devices.
-
Field techniques for electronics troubleshooting, energy management and battery care.
These workshops are presented by specialized professors, who explain the basic principles in addition to teaching the practical aspects of using the different instruments or techniques. Once the data has been acquired, it will be processed in a final or preliminary stage. For this purpose, we will have computers specially set up for data processing at camp. Students can therefore follow the workflow from the data collection to final results.
PIRP 2023
PIRP 2022
PIRP 2022
PIRP 2023