Miguel Ramos, Gabriel Goyanes and Sara Ramos departed to Antarctica to conduct the maintenance of the PERMANTAR borehole network in Livingston Island and Cierva Cove. Sites in Deception Island have been maintained this season by Miguel Angel de Pablo.
This season activities also include high resolution surveying of the PERMANTAR sites using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and the annual measurement of Hurd rock glacier deformation in Livingston Island.
The PERMANTAR 2017-18 campaign is a collaboration between the CEG/IGOT - Universidade de Lisboa, the Universidad de Alcalá (Spain), the Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera and Krummholz - Biogeosciences for Society.

In a long and beautiful summer day, Gonçalo Vieira and João Ferreira, have collected the data from all the shallow boreholes installed in Cierva Point and upgraded the 15 m borehole with a new Geoprecision datalogger and temperature string.

After problems that affected the string inside the borehole, in February 2017 the Amsler Island permafrost borehole (9 m) was upgraded using a new Geoprecision logger and temperature string, allowing for higher accuracy, longer battery life and higher memory, thus reducing maintenance costs. The field team was composed by Gonçalo Vieira and João Ferreira, which counted with the help of Pedro Guerreiro and Carmen Sousa, and with the logistical support of the Spanish vessel Hesperides.