Explorer in Residence: Heinerth Tackles a Crazy Hybrid of Activities

In 2000, when an iceberg the size of Jamaica broke free from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, cave diver Jill Heinerth and her team decided they wanted to find a way inside of it. They imagined an iceberg as a growing, shifting entity full of cracks and fissures, with conduits like veins beneath the ice, and that is just what they found. In addition, where the iceberg lodged on the seafloor, undercuts allowed Heinerth to swim beneath the mass, where she encountered a world of sea stars, tunicates, and other unexpected life. It was perhaps her most exhilarating dive. She has called it beautiful and alluring, but also scary, with a few life-threatening close calls.