On January 15, the helicopter pilot, who had been busy all night, or 24 hours of work, lay down in the station of Lao Mei and fell asleep. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

The team of experts first assessed the lava activity and found that there was no danger of an outbreak in the near future, and after determining this, they began to send equipment down the ice cave.

As a semi-amateur and semi-professional rock climber, Fang Hong is also confused about transporting items to the ice cave.

In the end, the team of experts chose to use a car to deliver the large equipment. The most important thing is to send the miniature crane to the ice cave first.

The tracks of the cars cling to the ground, and in Antarctica, most vehicles have tracks.

As the car retreated, the crane continued to descend, and Fang Hong used a radio or walkie-talkie below: "Down, down, stop, stop." ”

Fang Hong and the other two staff members pulled the rope tied to the crane and stepped back: "Down, down, down, hey, yes, go down again." ”

"My gun brother moving company has a sense of sight. ”

"Good professional, haha. ”

Eventually, the device landed, and the most painful thing was that the device needed to be put into the depths of the ice cave.

As the equipment came down one after another, the people present were divided into three waves, one stayed in Lao Mei's station to do logistics, some stayed on the ice sheet for early warning and contact, and the rest of the people all reached the depths of the cave.

At this moment, the geography science students of the three HKUST universities are sitting in the square or auditorium looking at the large projection screen.

Professor Wang counted the equipment, and then spoke: "Fang Hong, you still have to explore the way first, if the cliff can't go directly to the bottom, forget it, wait for the bigger machinery to come." ”

"No problem, I'll try first. ”

The boom of the miniature crane releases a steel cable, and the special steel buckle is connected to Fang Hong's rappel rope.

Fang Hong took a pack of rope buckles, and now he goes down to use the crane, but this crane can't be here all the time, and people in the future will have to rely on themselves up and down.

Ma Fengfeng's visual inspection, this rock wall is a whole rock wall, although the ground is soft, but the bottom should be very hard, as for the rope buckle on the ground, can only use concrete to make a base.

Passing by the dark cliff, Fang Hong looked very cautious.

Because Ma Fengfeng said that there is also steam coming out of the cliff below, although the steam is not water vapor, the temperature is lower than 100 degrees, but it can be scalded after being sprayed for a long time.

Every little distance, Fang Hong had to use the flashlight hanging on his waist to illuminate the cliff wall below.

"Brother Gun, be careful. ”

On the other hand, the live broadcaster used a night vision system to shoot in the air, and Fang Hong in the distant view seemed too cautious.

Of course, Fang Hong can see the road through night vision devices, but Fang Hong needs to be vigilant to keep this secret.

Because the other functions of the aircraft are not much different from the high-precision aircraft made by humans, only the fact that the information is directly engraved into the brain is too sci-fi, and Fang Hong needs to keep this secret.

All the way down, sure enough, he still passed through a tiny steam port, Fang Hong let go of the bayonet, slid down three meters, and crossed this bayonet.

It can be clearly seen in the lens that there is a crack in this cliff, which is seven meters wide and only a few centimeters high, but how deep it is cannot be detected.

However, judging from the amount of water vapor converted into steam, it should not be able to pass directly into the lava, otherwise the lava should also flow out.

After five minutes of sliding, Fang Hong finally reached the bottom of the ice, and sent first-hand data to the top: "The drop is one or three or three meters, and the temperature is minus twenty-seven degrees." ”

Fang Hong squatted down, underground, under the illumination of the flashlight, a strange scene was revealed.

In the flat ice, a small number of bubbles and tree-like lava solids were frozen.

Although it looks similar to a tree, it is believed that the lava solidified in the water and the escaping rock mass was frozen.

It looks like frozen amber.

Without the influence of snow, the powerful searchlight could see nearly forty or fifty centimeters of lava solidification from tree stumps deep under the ice.

"The ice here is big enough to bear the weight of a human body, so let's put a searchlight down first. ”

After a while, the searchlight came down, Fang Hong untied the searchlight, then debugged, and finally aimed the searchlight at the crack in the cliff wall: "There is steam escaping from the place where the light shines, and the speed is a little faster when you come down, Qiu Qing, you have to carefully check their equipment before they come down." ”

Compared with freehand climbing and upward climbing, descent with a rappelling rope and rappelling bayonet is much simpler, and it does not require too much preparation, as long as the equipment is fine.

"When you arrive at the entrance of the cave, keep your back straight, keep your legs straight, step by step, and loosen the buckle at the bottom of the edge, not with your back to the rock wall. ”

The first to come down were of course Ma Fengfeng and a few people who had experience in using this set of equipment.

They descended to the ground and began to direct more equipment to come down.

"It's just an ice cave, do you need to be so excited?"

"Now we see the ice walls on this side, the reason for this is unknown, if they are the initial ice sheets, then the research value is to determine when the Antarctic was born, if they are the ice sheets that formed later, then they record the data of climate change on the planet for tens of millions of years. ”

Fang Hong: "At present, we have obtained ice cores that are more than one million years old, and the ice cores that are older are weak, but here, we can get ice cores that are tens of millions of years old without drilling rigs, which may be the biggest discovery in climatology." ”

Fang Hong took a look at the ice walls: "The shells of these ice walls are like solidified ice instead of squeezed white snow pressed ice, but who knows what you can find by digging a hole in here?"

All but three men remained above to look after the boom, and everyone else went down to the ice, including three American climatologists.

The difficulty now is that they don't have the equipment, they don't have geologists, they can't tell the age of volcanic activity, they can't get ice cores, and they don't have to think that American scientists have already arrived by snowmobiles or detours to Australia, but at least they won't be there tonight.

Now, it belongs only to the Chinese scientific expedition team.

After all the people came down, Professor Wang decisively ordered the people above to expand the hole opening, so that the crane arm slightly exceeded the position of the cliff wall, so that the equipment could go up and down.

Professor Wang looked at the frozen ice: "Treasure, a rare ancient volcanic eruption has been preserved. ”

Hua Bai didn't say a word before he went to the edge of the ice wall: "There are tens of millions of years of information sealed here, and it can even be traced back to the beginning of the birth of Antarctica, a natural database!"

Various equipment was activated, large searchlights and large LED light clusters were activated, and more parts were illuminated by the light.

It's like a huge natural ice rink, high enough to fit the capital's International Trade Center, which was completed the year before.

Under the cold light, the whole cave is like a dream.

Ma Fengfeng pulled Shang Hong and walked towards the other ice cave he saw at the beginning.

"Old horse, what are you pulling me for?"

"I've seen everything I should see, just wait for the equipment to pick up the real thing, there's an ice cave here, go and observe it." ”

Fang Hong was helpless and followed the old horse.

To the southeast of the cave, there was an ice cave, exactly like the one on the ground.

Here, though, it's even more peculiar.

Under the searchlight, the beautiful scenery is amazing.

One by one, the icicles stand on the ice like beams supporting the cave.

However, everyone understands that ice caves precede the birth of icicles, the product of water vapor condensation and solidification that comes from the time of icicles.

The old horse shone into the depths of the cave: "It seems, it's a long ice cave." ”

"Professor Wang, a new ice cave has been discovered here. ”

"Test the data first, and you can go over Huabai. ”

Qiu Qing also had nothing to do, so he followed.

The boys walked deeper into the ice cave.