Laura Gerrish

This was one of my last things to organise at work before soon going on maternity leave and it's always so nice to see how much people still love paper maps. There's just something special about them and the joy, conversation and memories that they bring about 🥰

We are so pleased to announce the official launch of the new BAS Map Catalogue 🎉🗺 The catalogue contains open access topographic, thematic and geological maps, as well as full details on where to purchase our professionally printed published maps. Have a look for yourselves at bas.ac.uk/maps! 1/2

Thank you so much to the British Cartographic Society for recognising 2 of @bas.ac.uk’s maps at last week’s conference. It was fantastic to collect the certificate for our recently-released Alexander Island map, one of the most interesting maps I’ve made in a long time!

#A23a iceberg continues its disintegration north of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, with a brilliant image from today finishing off this timelapse of Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery over the last few weeks! It's always interesting to track these bergs out of Antarctica and into warmer waters 🌊🌴

Iceberg A23A is currently located north of South Georgia & over the weekend has fragmented into a several large pieces. While these individual icebergs are large & may get new names, they may be short lived as further breakup is now likely as currents push them all further north into warmer waters.

Really looking forward to this conference at @bgs.ac.uk next week! Always great to catch up with other mapping enthusiasts. Is anyone else on here going to 1 or both days?

I'm just starting an update of BAS's published "Adelaide Island and Arrowsmith Peninsula" map. One of the first things I always work on is creating new hillshades & contours from the latest elevation data. These in-progress images show some of the interesting islands & landscapes in the region! 🏔️🧊

This new topographic map has been my big project for the last few months and I'm so pleased to see it finally printed and published! 🗺️ It's been a truly fascinating region to work in, with changes happening almost before my eyes as I attempted to keep the new data up to date. ❄️🧊

NOAA has released their official animation of the propagation of this week's tsunami. It took almost exactly one day to reach Antarctica and was reported at 0.6 feet high.

Bedmap3 map PDFs are now available to freely download from BAS data.bas.ac.uk/items/757872...

South Georgia in winter 😍 These SAR and optical images show the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic. SAR imagery allows us to see these locations through winter and cloud-covered days, and then the optical imagery adds extra content when it's not cloudy or dark!

In case you were wondering... Iceberg A23a seen cruising around South Georgia today by Meteosat 12. The old berg still has an area of 2,846 sq km.

📢 We're hiring! My team is currently advertising for my maternity cover for 12 months. Join us, making maps and working on some of the most interesting aspects of my role. You'll get to work in beautiful Cambridge and meet all kinds of interesting people at the British Antarctic Survey ❄️🗺️

We've just received the proofs of our new Alexander Island map from Dennis Maps printers and have given the go ahead for printing! This is the first comprehensive map of the entire region produced in decades. At 1:500 000 scale, it also features a geological map on the reverse 😍 Watch this space!

The NERC Arctic Office have printed a giant version of our main published Arctic map and it's come out beautifully! We can't wait to see this being used at upcoming events. Who doesn't want a huge 3 metre map?!

We're proud to share that our Bedmap3 map won "Best Map" at the International Map Industry Association (IMIA) forum in London last week! 🏆 This international award celebrates Outstanding Cartographic Design & we’re honoured to be recognised alongside leading names in the field from previous years. 🗺️

I'm speaking at the IMIA Mapping Leaders Forum next week in London. Is anyone here attending? I'm looking forward to meeting other mapping enthusiasts and experts at the 2 day event! There are still a few spaces left if you'd like to come along. More details here: imiamaps.org/mapping-lead...

📢 The final ArcticDEM & REMA release is here - and it might be the last. Funding cuts put vital polar data at risk. Help us rally support: take the survey! 🔗https://z.umn.edu/pgc-dem-survey #PolarScience #SavePolarData

Did you know that from 2000 to 2020, retreat of marine-terminating glaciers exposed >2,400 km of new Arctic coastline? www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congratulations, @mettebendixen.bsky.social, @cpecz.bsky.social, Jan Kavan, Matt Strelecki, and co., on your excellent paper!

More data! 😄 I love looking at Sentinel-1 imagery through these portals because it gives a near-real-time insight into changes in Antarctica, and the detail in the sea ice patterns can be so insightful for a range of people working in the region 🚢 🛰️ 🌊

I've picked up my new Alexander Island map today after a month or two of other work, and while double checking some data, I noticed that this section of ice shelf has retreated by over 1.5 km in places since I updated the data in November. Can things just stop melting?! Keeps me busy for sure!

We’ve just published the most detailed map yet of the landscape beneath Antarctica’s ice sheet (called Bedmap3), and we learnt some pretty cool facts about Antarctica that you can use to impress your pals. Ready? Graphic: Hamish Pritchard et al

We've been working with this beautiful Copernicus Sentinel-2 imagery this week, showing South Georgia in all its glory in Feb. 2018. The sediment plumes are clearly highlighted here and it is extremely rare to get an almost cloud-free image of the whole island 🏔️😍

Lovely image from the NOAA-20 satellite yesterday showing the location of grounded A23a iceberg close to the island of South Georgia 😍 It's still crazy to me that this iceberg has been in the Southern Ocean since 1986, taking a few little pauses along its way to this current position! @bas.ac.uk

Back to one of my favourite tasks of iceberg mapping 😄

I'm thrilled to be a part of developing and populating this new catalogue! I’ve created hundreds of maps (maybe even over a thousand!) during my time at BAS - many used once and then forgotten. Now we'll be making them openly available for all to use. Watch this space! 👀🗺️

This is a map I first started about 4 years ago, and it’s been put down and picked back up about 5 times since then (we’ve all had projects like this!) but I’m so glad to see it finally released! The front cover shows some of the very varied terrain that has been mapped 😍

Interesting article written by BAS scientist Dr Ella Gilbert, featuring a little map that I made the other day. I always like mapping the fast-changing and important region of Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers! 🗺️

A new iceberg, ~30x14 km in size, recently calved from the southern end of the George VI Ice Shelf. It's called A84 and is already making quite an impact, bumping into the Stange Ice Shelf over the weekend! These Copernicus Sentinel-1 images from Polar View show the new berg over the last few days.

Beautiful Sentinel-2 imagery of George VI Ice Shelf with lots of meltwater from yesterday. The patterns that this water produces is like artwork! Fossil Bluff is shown in the second image, and Hodgson Lake shown in the last - a former subglacial lake sealed under ice thick perennial ice ❄️

Did you know that MAGIC support the BAS Air Unit with mapping, imagery and also 3D visualisations? Check out Rothera runway, made using the latest drone imagery draped over a digital elevation model! Visualising the runway & obstacle surfaces in 3D helps pilots better understand these remote areas ✈️

Happy #PenguinAwarenessDay! I think it’s a rule that everyone who works at BAS has to like penguins, so to spread their cuteness, here’s a couple of my favourite photos from an amazing trip to the Falkland Islands a few years ago 🐧

Beautiful image showing an almost cloud free Stange Ice Shelf with the RRS Sir David Attenborough alongside 🚢 (you’ll need a good eye to spot it!)

🌐 Exciting news! We’re thrilled to announce the release of the new Ice Logistics Portal, providing global sea ice charts from 13 ice & weather services. Explore: www.icelogistics.info 1/3

I don't get to work in the Arctic as much as I'd like, but someone requested an image of the Qaqortoq region of Greenland today and I found this beautiful Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from a few months ago 😍 There are just so many interesting features to see!

I'm currently trying to figure out the 'best' grounding line to use on our new Alexander Island map. Grounding lines are notoriously difficult and these images show 3 potential sources against a REMA hillshade. I'm redrawing the shape of the land so it's important to show as accurately as possible!

1,000,000+ years of climate history! Truly mind-boggling. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

An interesting post from the head of my team showing the location of our big red ship in amongst some sea ice at the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. Good luck to the team onboard! I love seeing the web cam photos here: www.bas.ac.uk/polar-operat...

My colleague collated these images and the second one showing ‘Cape Christmas’ is my favourite - named because surveyors from Stonington Island spent Christmas Day in the vicinity in 1947. A bit different to most of our Christmases now! 🎄

🗺️❄️New mapping blog alert ❄️🗺️ Discover our blog post to explore the latest topographic datasets released in the @scar-antarctic.bsky.social Antarctic Digital Database. We've also got exciting news on the release of versions 1-5 of the Antarctic coastlines from 1993-2010! www.bas.ac.uk/blogpost/ant...

To anyone who has followed me on here - my team at BAS now has its own page and will be posting really cool and interesting bits of work. Check it out and give them a follow for all things related to ice and mapping ❄️ 🌍 We also happen to have one of the best team names around (MAGIC!).

Hi everyone! First post here, so I thought I’d share some photos of two maps I’m working on at the moment - Alexander Island and The South Orkney Islands. These two maps will join our series of published maps at BAS, with the South Orkneys map heading to the printers very soon!