Laura Gerrish
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lauragerrish.bsky.social
Laura Gerrish
@lauragerrish.bsky.social
GIS and Mapping Specialist at the British Antarctic Survey. Interested in cartography, data visualisation, remote sensing and glaciology ❄️
#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 🌊🌴
September 11, 2025 at 8:14 PM
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! 🏔️🧊
August 19, 2025 at 3:49 PM
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!
July 11, 2025 at 10:02 AM
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!
April 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM
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
March 5, 2025 at 10:49 AM
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 😍
February 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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 ❄️
January 30, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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 🐧
January 20, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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!
January 10, 2025 at 4:53 PM
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!
January 10, 2025 at 11:42 AM
To add another contender for 'the world's most southerly island', what about Buckley Island at 85°S? This is the most southerly named island in the SCAR CGA, but surely not a real island as it's well within the grounded area of Antarctica! 🏝️❄️

Map extract taken from maps.apps.pgc.umn.edu/id/344
December 18, 2024 at 3:28 PM
These draft extracts of our new Alexander Island map show 5 new places recently named - Isopleth Island, recently detached from the main island, Mount Meridian, the tallest point in the Colbert Mtns, Projection Rocks, plotting in deep water and so easily missed, and Raster and Vector islands ❤️ 🗺️
December 10, 2024 at 3:41 PM
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!
November 20, 2024 at 5:05 PM