Antarctica

Life at McMurdo

2008-12-12T16:59:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

Thanks for reading my blog. Unfortunately this will be my last post as our project is dead for the season. We have been socked in by the weather, and are now out of time to get to our field camp. So I'll be coming home early. I should be back in St. Louis on the 15th or 16th. For my last post I have some pictures of what life is like at McMurdo research station. Enjoy.

This a shot of the loading dock in the Crary science building. This is where we do our equipment testing and field preparation.

Equipment testing.

When we get a little down time, I take the opportunity to play the Ross Island disc golf course. This is my friend Carl getting ready to tee off. Yes he is crazy and in fact wearing shorts.

Sometimes our discs go astray and we have to climb up on the roof to retrieve them.

The disc golf crew.

Here we are getting some survival training for preparation to head to the field.

Altitude training inside the Gamow bag. When someone gets altitude sickness we have to stick them in this small pressured chamber that simulates lower altitudes until they recover.

My bedroom in the dorms. My bed is on the right.

Here's a shot of our office in the Crary science building.

Dining Hall.

And finally a couple of shots from one of the parties at McMurdo this season. The event was called Freezing Man. It was like Burning Man, only in Antarctica. There were costumes, live music, and glow sticks.

polenet.org

2008-12-10T17:56:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know about the polenet.org website. Kelly has been posting videos, pictures, and stories live from the ice. There's even a podcast you can download featuring yours truly. The website also contains maps and more information about our project including a 'Cool for Schools' section. We also have a facebook group with pictures, discussion, and links to blogs. Feel free to post questions and comments there as well.

Check it out!

You can find my podcast and other videos here:

http://polenet.org/polenet_live.htm

And for Miss Howell's class:

Q: Are the ice formations stalactites?

A: I believe the ice formations can be called stalactites (they hang tight from the ceiling). Some people may also call them icicles (like the ones on your gutter at home in the winter). However, the formations in the ice cave are protected from the elements allowing the ice crystal structure to grow to produce the magnificent shapes and textures you see in the pictures.

Q: Do people eat penguins?

A: People no longer eat penguins in the Antarctic (nor, I hear from diaries of the early explorers, would you want to!) Their eggs, however, are quite tasty...just kidding! Penguins and penguin eggs are protected by the Antarctic wildlife treaty which says all wildlife in the Antarctic should be left undisturbed such that the animals do not react to your presence.

Q: What do you do with your data?

A: The data we collect for this project will be used to study the rocks buried beneath the ice sheets. Seismology allows us to study the properties of the rocks without actually possessing a sample we can examine or bring back to the lab. The data will also be used to monitor ice sheet movements to determine if the ice sheets are disappearing and how fast they are disappearing.

And yes, feel free to share this blog with everyone!

Cape Surprise

2008-12-07T12:07:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

After two weeks in McMurdo, I finally made it out to the field. The outing was a day trip to Cape Surprise to service one of the seismic stations we had installed last year. To get to the station, we took a four hour (one way) flight in a twin otter along the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM). The TAM extend from the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea along the entire length of Antarctica, and separate the continent into two halves, East and West Antarctica (see map below). The highest peaks rise over 14,000 feet above sea level. They are one of the worlds longest continental rift flank uplifts. This means the mountains were formed during extension and stretching of the continental lithosphere. The exact mechanism for their uplift involves thickened crust (similar to an ice cube in water, the thicker the ice cube, the higher it sits), and warm temperatures in the upper mantle that provide thermal buoyancy forces beneath the crest of the mountains. Rifting began in the late Jurassic or early Cretaceous (roughly 150 million years ago) with most of the uplift occurring in the Cenozoic (the last 67 million years or so). As you can imagine, the scenery was absolutely beautiful. Here are some pictures.

Transantarctic Mountains.

One of the many massive outlet glaciers that flows down through the TAM and onto the Ross ice shelf, draining the East Antarctic ice sheet .

Twin otter on the ground at our field site.

Some of the scenery at our field site.

A shot of us working on the station with the twin otter in the background.

Crevasse field.

It was a pretty long flight so we had to stop and refuel along the way. There are fuel caches placed throughout the continent each year for just such purposes. The pilots carry a pump in the airframe to transfer the fuel from the drums to the plane. Not unlike a stop at your local gas station!

Here's a shot of me in front of our station. The solar panels provide power for the instrumentation which is located in the big orange box (except for the actual sensor itself which is buried beneath the snow and ice). Also note the two small antennas located at the top of the frame. The small dome on the left is a GPS receiver that is used for timing of the seismographs, not location (it records a location as well, but we are only interested in the time). This is necessary so we know exactly when an event occurs, and can correlate that time with other seismic stations around the world. The cylindrical antenna on the right is an iridium satellite modem. This allows us to transmit information from our station to a webpage that can be accessed anywhere in the world. While we do not yet have the bandwidth to transmit the data itself, we can obtain state of health information such as voltages on the power supply, temperature in the box, and small snapshots of the data.

Another massive outlet glacier.

More shots of the TAM.

A good shot of the twin otter.

When we got to the station, we found it had tilted to one side from where we left it a year ago because the snow had been blow out from underneath of the frame. So we had to empty the box and dig down to some hard ice to make a level surface to prevent the whole thing from falling over. We never know what we're going to find when we arrive at a station to service it, but a typical service run involves digging out the station from the snow, replacing any equipment that is broken or malfunctioning, and retrieving the data that was collected over the last year.

Check back in a day or two for a special feature on life at McMurdo research station!

Scott's hut

2008-11-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

Unfortunately, I am having a hard time uploading photos. I've been trying to upload these photos for two days now, and I still did not get to post all of the ones I wanted to. So these will have to do.

The second part of our delta trip was to Scott's hut at Cape Evans. The hut was built in 1910 as headquarters for Robert Falcon Scott's second Antarctic expedition, the Terra Nova expedition. Scott's mission was to be the first human to reach the South Pole. Scott reached the south pole, however, he was preceded by a Norweigan, Roald Amundsen, nearly a month earlier. Scott and his four companions died on their return journey to the hut, trapped in a blizzard, just 11 miles from their next supply depot.

The hut was later reoccupied by members of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party of the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition (ITAE) in 1915. Although subsequently abandoned when a rescue ship arrived, the hut and its contents are remarkably well preserved due to the consistently sub-freezing conditions. An inscription by Dick Richards on the wall near his bunk, lists the names of those who perished during the ITAE, and can still be read today.

Scott's hut

Seal blubber used for food and fuel.

Looks like they were getting ready to cut up a penguin when the rescue ship arrived. The members of the ITAE were stranded at the hut waiting to be rescued, and didn't bother to tidy up before they left.

Dining room table

Bunks

Sleeping quarters

Penguin eggs.

A memorial cross for members of the ITAE who died in Antarctica.

Ice cave

2008-11-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the comments. Keep em coming!

Justin, the big spool on the C-17 is cabling for one of the big science projects down here known as the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory. The Ice Cube project will search for collisions between neutrinos and atoms within the ice. These observations will contribute to our understanding of cosmic rays, supersymmetry, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPS), and other aspects of nuclear and particle physics that I know nothing about. And Nancy, no I don't really know any of the folks working on the Ice Cube project. They are all based at the South Pole station and I'm working out of McMurdo (roughly 900 miles away). But I do know some other folks from UW-Madison here. My bunkmate last year was a technician from UW-Madison that operated hot water drills for drilling into the ice.

On to the pictures.

A few nights ago I had the oppurtunity to take a delta trip out to Cape Evans. A delta is a big wheeled vehicle used for transportation on the ice (not a mass spectrometer). There's a picture of one below.

Along the way we stopped at the tongue of the Erebus glacier where it flows out onto the frozen sea ice and explored a small ice cave.

After we left the cave, we walked over and checked out some bergs that got trapped in the frozen sea ice.

Part 2 of the delta trip coming soon!

Christchurch Botanic Gardens

2008-11-26T17:49:00.000-08:00

back to the ice

2008-11-22T20:33:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I enjoy putting it together. It should be a fun season with lots of great stories and lots of great photos. I'm going to try and post more regularly this season so keep checking back. I'm also going to try and include more science and technical stuff this year so if you have any questions please feel free and post them in the comments section. I also plan to do some features about life at McMurdo and other non-science related material so there should be something for everyone.

My trip to the ice started in Christchurch, New Zealand. This is a shot of my hotel, the Windsor. I'm going to post some photos of the Christchurch Botanical Garden in the next day or two.

And this is Winnie the weenie dog. She is in charge of the joint. The Windsor is really her hotel, we're all just staying there. So I try and stay on her good side by sneaking her some table scraps at breakfast.

This is a shot of the CDC (clothing distribution center) in Christchurch. This is wear we receive our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear for the ice. We use a lot of acronyms here.

These are some shots of our flight to Antarctica on the C-17.

Here's one for all you pilots out there. It's picture of the flight map to Antarctica.

Getting off the plane in Antarctica. The runway for this monster plane is located on the frozen sea ice.

A shot of me in front of Mt. Erebus, the world's southernmost volcano. McMurdo, the big US research station where we are staying, is built on a lava flow from this volcano. Mt. Erebus rises 12,541 feet above sea level. The summit contains a persistent convecting phonolitic (intermediate between felsic and mafic composition) lava lake. Characteristic eruptive activity consists of Strombolian type (weak) eruptions from the lava lake or from one of several subsidiary vents, all lying within the volcano's inner crater. Mt Erebus is classified as a polygenetic stratovolcano. The bottom half of the volcano is a shield and the top half is a stratocone. The composition of the current eruptive products of Erebus is anorthoclase-porphyric (feldspar crystals in a fine grained matrix) and tephritic phonolite (volcanic bombs that fall from the air) and phonolite. One of the big projects down here this year will use seismology to image the magma chamber and inner workings of the volcano. Pretty cool!

You can watch videos of eruptions on Erebus here:

http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/Erebus/mevomm/movies.html

Check it out!

homeward bound

2008-02-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Well, it's been a great trip, but my time on the ice has come to an end. We flew back to NZ yesterday. And as much of a shock as it is to arrive on the ice, it is an even bigger shock to arrive back in New Zealand. It's a hard feeling to describe, but the best I can do is say it is sensory overload. There are many colors and sounds and the smell of fresh vegetation and moisture in the air, and it's all very foreign to me at the moment. So after a couple days of decompression in NZ and a weekend with Maggie in L.A. I will return to St. Louis on Tues. Feb 19. Look forward to seeing you all soon!

Some answers for Miss Howell's class:

Courtney asks "What was the red stuff in the snow, under the plane in the photo right before the crash pictures?"

That is hydraulic fluid that leaked from the plane during the crash. It is used to operate the landing gear.

Gaby asks, "What inspired you to do the work that you do?"

I have always been fascinated with nature and the outdoors and interested in how the Earth works. Now I hope to study the data from this project to determine how the Earth's crust and mantle will affect the stability of Antarctic ice sheets during this period of global warming and sea level rise.

Erik asks, "What was scarier: sledding down the mountain, climbing up the mountain or the plane crash?"

Sledding down the mountain!

Hannah asks, "When you stayed in the clam shells, were they already there or did you have to put it together?"

Fortunately, the clam shells were pre-assembled for us by the staff at the tourist facility that we stayed at. However, we did assemble the red science tent that we used as our lab at Patriot Hills.

Miss Howell asks, "Where were the restrooms when you were living in the clam shells?"

There was an outhouse 30 yards or so from our tent. And at night we used pee bottles that we kept in the tent.

Thanks for the questions!

Brimstone Peak

2008-02-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Hey friends,

Here are some shots of my trip to Brimstone Peak. It was by far the best flight I've ever been on in my life. I can't describe how truly awesome it was, but I'll do my best with these pictures. And just so everyone knows, all of the pictures from Antarctica that appear on this blog were taken by other people. I'm hoping my film shots turn out a lot better, but I really need to get a digital camera...

The view from Brimstone Peak. Unfortunately the lighting was not very good the day we were there and the pictures do not show how truly breathtaking the scenery was.

Here is Abel and myself hanging out at the GPS site. There was not a seismic station here, I just went along to help the GPS guys out. It was really easy and they didn't really need my help. I was mostly along for the ride.

Here is me standing next to our mode of transportation, a Bell-212 helicopter or huey. These things are a lot of fun to ride in.

Here is me at my seat in the helicopter. Check out that view!

On the way back we stopped at this sandstone near the fuel cache to play around for a bit. It was really neat, we collected ventifacts (wind eroded rocks) and petrified wood. The petrified wood could be found laying around as logs in situ! I wish I had some better shots of these two things...

On the way home we flew along the edge of the sea ice and spotted numerous whales and penguins. This is a shot of two orcas or killer whales. They are magnificent creatures and a whole lot bigger than the ones you see at Sea World. The ones we saw were roughly the size of a school bus. The water is so clear and blue and green that you could see them just cruising around. And of course they would surface frequently to breath and look for penguins. This was a really cool sight because they would come up vertically and stick their head out of the water and hover and look around for a bit. We also saw a couple of Minke whales and loads of Adelie penguins.

more photos

2008-02-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody,

More photos! Look forward to seeing you all soon.

This is a picture of Scott Base. Scott Base is the Kiwi (New Zealand) base located on the same island and just across the penisula from McMurdo. For some reason all of their buildings are green. You can also see some ridges in the sea ice directly behind the station. These are known as pressure ridges and form where the sea ice is under compression as it is pushed into the land by the ocean currents.

This is a bird called a skua. They are ornery little bastards. They sit at the entrance to the galley and wait for people to walk out with food. Then they attack you and take your food. At the chili cookoff, I saw them dive bomb people and steal their cup of chili right out of their hands. Pretty comical. They are about the size of a typical seagull.

Some shots of McMurdo with Ob or Observation Hill in the background. Ob Hill is an old (inactive) volcanic cone. It was formed when fragments (called ejecta) thrown up from a volcanic vent, piled up around the vent in the shape of a cone.

Here is a group photo of the entire Polenet science team. I'm underneath the Norweigan flag for all you geography buffs or fourth in from the right.

Mt. Discovery - a dormant volcano.

Ob Hill.

View of McMurdo from the top of Ob Hill.

Mt Erebus from Ob Hill.

These are some more shots from Patriot Hills. One morning Don and I hiked to the highest point along the ridge in the mountains behind our camp. As usual the pictures do not do it justice, but the scenery was spectular! It was a pretty grueling hike too because it was really steep and you were either walking on ice or skree (loose rock) for the entire ~700m vertical climb.

So towards the end of our stay at Patriot Hills after all the tourists or tour-ons left, the camp staff decided to groom the snow in the mountain (snowy pass) behind camp for sledding. I'm not sure how high the slope was but it was higher than anyone should have been sledding on. It was crazy! You couldn't see the top from the bottom or vice versa and there was a giant turn with rock ledges to maneuver. But we all grabbed a sled a gave it a whirl anyway. Man was it fun! The most extreme sledding I've ever done in my life. We were all rolling on the ground laughing from the hilarity of it all. The top picture is a shot of me going down the mountain. I had snow and ice in every crack and crevice on my body by the time we were finished. We warmed up by drinking a hot, spiced red wine. I forget what they called it but it was delicious. The second picture is of the snow machines shuttling people to the top of the slope.

And even more photos coming soon!

Patriot Hills

2008-01-30T17:10:00.000-08:00

At long last, some pictures from Patriot Hills! More coming soon.

Our mode of transportation to and from the Patriot Hills was an LC-130 Hercules. It's equiped with skis that allow it to land it land in the deep field. The skis are proprietary technology and is what allows the US and no other countries to have a major presence in the interior of the continent.

Inside the air frame. It's pretty cramped inside with all of our equipment. Note that the seats are merely cargo nets strapped to the walls of the plane. Beats the heck out of flying commercial!

Here's a shot of our twin otter at the Patriot Hills camp. This is the air frame we used to get to our station sites from the camp. It can land in some pretty tight spaces. Our pilot, Jim, was a pro and getting in and out of some very tricky sites. At one place we had to land, slow our momentum so we didn't crash into an escarpment, then take off and land again on some blue ice, then taxi over to the edge of another escarpment where we installed our seismic station.

This is a shot of our science tent where we worked on prepping the equipment to go to the field. This type of tent is called a weather haven.

Here are some shots of the galley where we ate all of our meals. The cooks were incredible. We ate sushi, currys, steak, chili, pasta, and all kinds of good stuff. All of the food came from Chile.

Audrey and myself hauling some equipment to the science tent.

Here are some shots of the scenery from camp. It was a truly beautiful and majestic place.

The science tent.

Some more shots from camp. I really like these because you get a sense of the blowing snow and the high winds.

These little tents are called clam shells. This is were we slept when we weren't working. They were pretty nice. There were mattresses and a small table inside and just enough room to stand up and change your clothes.

Success!

2008-01-24T12:32:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Greetings from McMurdo. We are back in town after a successful expedition to our field camp in the Patriot Hills. We spent two weeks out there and got all of our stations installed - 5 seismic and 6 GPS. It was a great time and I have lots of pictures to go through and post. I'll be working on those over the next few days so there will be lots of updates in the near future. We have four stations left to install from McMurdo and then I will return home. Right now it looks like that will be sometime in mid-February. I look forward to seeing you all soon. Thanks for all the comments and keep them coming.

Here are some replies to the comments I have received so far.

Mark, Amy - I know I should be wearing a coat, but actually it is pretty warm a lot of the days at McMurdo (plusing I'm wearing some thermals under my outer layer so it is not so bad). When the sun is out and at its highest point and there is no wind, the temperature can get as high as 35-40F. However, when the sun is low and it is cloudy and the wind picks up it can get pretty cold, more like 15-20F. At most of our field sites it is considerably colder and I can assure that I wear my coat and multiple layers of thermal underwear out there. Also, as most of you know there is 24 hours of daylight here during the summer and 24 hours of darkness during the winter (It is summer in the southern hemisphere right now). So during the daytime hours the sun is a little higher in the sky so it gets a little warmer, and during the evening it gets a little lower so it gets cooler. But the sun won't set again here until late February. Until then it just spins around in the sky providing constant sunshine and some warmth. The main things that affect the temperature at a given location here are the elevation and the wind speed. Obviously, the higher you go, the colder it gets. McMurdo is on a island and located right at sea level so it is not so bad. Our field sites, however, range from about 1500 ft to 8500 ft above sea level. But the thing that really gets you is the wind. The winds here, known as katabatic winds, can be brutal and are the highest sustained winds recorded on earth. Sometimes as much as 200 mph! This occurs when air from the top of the frigid Antarctic ice sheet (also known as the polar plateau, elevation >10,000 ft, avg temp -30 to -50F) cools, loses density, and descends rapidly to lower elevations. There were some days at Patriot Hills where the wind would literally knock you over if you did not have a firm foothold in the ground. It was amusing trying to walk from one place to another during the katabatic winds because you would have to lean into the wind to make progress, but then the wind let up for a second and you would fall flat on your face!

Andy - Good to hear from you! I'm glad you found the blog. And you're right, everything is delicious compared to a chunk of pemmican! This place is just like scout camp for grown ups. I know all of our scouting buddies would love it here. Below is a picture of me enjoying one of those survival bars.

Kaare - Don't you worry, I've got lighters for all! And something else for you I know you like to collect.

Krystal - Stephanie, from the Glamour article, is a member of our field team. She is in the group picture of the deployment photos.

Michelle - Yes, that news article is about our group. Doug is my advisor at WashU. I think they're planning to run another story when we get back and I may get interviewed for it. The link for those of you that missed the previous article is

http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=135868

Thanks for posting!

And speaking of news articles, here's another link to a news article from the New Zealand Press about the Basler crash with quotes from my blog!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4335674a12.html

Brian - I did not get a chance to participate in the Scott's hut run. I didn't find out about it until it was too late!

Ryan - Don't know if I'll get a chance to do some fly fishing or not. I looked into it on my way down and it is pretty expensive for license, transportation, gear, guide, etc. You know I'll be ready as soon as I get home though! Should be right in time for opening weekend too. I've got lunker fever!

Ok, that's all for now. Sorry if I missed your comment. I think some of them got deleted somehow. I have lots of pictures, maps, and other fun stuff that I'll be posting soon.

Castle Rock

2008-01-06T20:38:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody,

Greetings from McMurdo. Yes, we are still in McMurdo. The weather has prevented us from getting to our deep field site for two weeks now! And unfortunately, the completion of our project is in jeopardy unless we can get out immediately and have perfect weather for the next two weeks. But you can't control the weather so we will install as many stations as we can in the time we have. In the meantime, I have been taking advantage of the Ross Island trail system (McMurdo is actually on a volcanic island, Ross Island in particular). So I've posted some pictures from my most recent hike to Castle Rock with my friends Russ and Lou. Castle Rock is an old volcanic plug or volcanic neck. It was formed when lava hardened in the vent of an active volcano. Subsequent erosion has removed the surrounding rock leaving behind the erosion-resistant plug that produces the distinctive landform shown in the picture below. The trail was about seven miles round trip. You can check out our route on the map below (yellow trail). And of course we made the side trip and climbed to the top of the rock. What a view! The pictures just don't do it justice. All in all it was a great hike and a great experience, despite the fact that it was pretty cold (15-20F) with a steady wind of about 30-35 mph. The wind is what kills you. But we got bundled up and braved the elements anyway. Hope you enjoy the pics!

Castle Rock trail.

Me and my friend Lou. I'm on the left.

Me near the base of the rock. Some clouds started to move in once we finally got there.

Some shots of us climbing to the top. It was a pretty good climb but manageable. They have some ropes set up to help you get to the top. There is no way we would have made it without the ropes and metal cleats on our boots. It is a long fall to the bottom if you slip on the ice!

Me at the top!

View of the top. The dark colored rock is the lava tube or plug itself. The reddish brown rock is the surrounding rock that is being eroded away.

My friend Russ at the top.

Me at the top.

Me and Russ at the top.

disc golf

2008-01-03T03:11:00.001-08:00

Yes, there is a disc golf course in Antarctica! We have been delayed for about two weeks now getting in the field so this is how I've been killing some time. We are finally scheduled to fly tomorrow so hopefully the weather holds and we can get some work done.

Hole #6 - I would call this the signature hole of the course. On a clear day there is a magnificent view of Mactown and across the Ross Sea to the Transantarctic Mts. Unfortunately the day we brought a camera with us it was cloudy. It's a nine hole course, but we frequently make up our own holes to extend it a little. Or sometimes we'll play the course forwards and then backwards to make it 18. For the final hole, you have to hit the side of Gallaghers (the beer bar) with your disc. Then we go inside and whoever takes the most strokes to do it buys a round.

Me throwing some discs. Check out that form!

My friends Russ (top two photos) and Lou (lower photo).

It's pretty easy to lose your disc amidst all the debris. One day mine ended up in this little compartent of a tractor. It took us 45 mins to find it!

Ah, the greenhouse. They grow lettuce, tomatoes, herbs, and other stuff here for use in the cafeteria. We usually stop here during a round and drink a beer. The mirrors on the wall make for some good photos. No photoshop!

Icestock

2007-12-30T22:29:00.000-08:00

Hello friends, family, and strangers!

First I'd like to wish you all happy holidays and a safe new year. I have been in McMurdo for the last week and a half decompressing from the crash and preparing to head to our field site in the Patriot Hills. If all goes well we will leave on Wednesday, Jan 2 and return to McMurdo sometime in late January, probably around the 22nd or 23rd. I'm not sure if I will have internet access there. Some people have been saying that we will, others say we won't so I don't know what to expect. The base we will stay at is a tourist facility for rich adventurers who like to do crazy things like bike to the pole. So it should be interesting. Around here we have been making last minute preparations for the field and celebrating the holidays. For Christmas, there was a big party with decorations and dancing and a Santa Claus. It was pretty fun. Then the next day we had a big feast that included crab legs, beef wellington, roast duck, assorted desserts and pastries, lots of wine, and lots of freshies (or fresh fruits, vegetables, cheese, etc). Freshies are a pretty valuable commodity around here as we can only get them every so often. But the best celebration was for New Year's. This includes the annual music festival known as Icestock. Icestock is a collection of bands that play an all day music festival. Also there is a chili cook off during the festival that is pretty delicious. All of the performers either bring their instruments down to the ice or borrow them from the rec department, find like minded musicians, and form a band. There are some pretty talented folks here spanning all genres of music. I had a lot fun, probably the best time I've had since I've been here. So without further ado, some pictures from Icestock.

The lineup card and schedule. I'm only going to post the pictures of my favorite bands.

It was a pretty cold day for an outdoor music festival. It was pretty windy with sometimes heavy snow. I have to admire the musicians. My hands were cold and I had gloves on. And they were up there playing instruments with no gloves! Of course they weren't holding cold beers like I was but still.

These are some shots of the Phat Ass Bluegrass band. They were pretty good. Definitely my style. I recognized most of the songs they played. Scott, the guitar player, is an amazing musician. And the two female vocalists, both named Julie, were also pretty solid.

Nice costume!

These are some shots of the blues band Blue Ice. They were great. Solid all around. I know the singer, Russ, and the guitar player Scott (also of Phat Ass Bluegrass) pretty well. We've been playing disc golf together so I was really excited to see these guys. And they did not disappoint. Russ has got some soul and Scott could wail on that guitar.

There were lots of great costumes in the crowd. Everyone was fired up and ready to dance and have a good time.

This is the band Porn Spill. They were awesome! Probably my favorite band of the show. They were a rhythm/funk band with ultra high energy. Great performers with a killer stage presence. The first image is a short movie. I couldn't get the audio to work on the computer in the lab. But I'm not sure if there is audio. All of these pictures and the movie were taken from the community temp drive on the local network. Can someone let me know if it works and I'll try and fix it?

And finally, Muschnuckle. A rocking band for sure.

Ok, that's all for now. I've got lots more pictures to post so hopefully I'll get a chance before we head to the field. If not, you'll hear from me in a few weeks.

an incident...I guess

2007-12-22T01:19:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

As some of you know, I was involved in a little incident with the Basler (a DC-3 twin engine turbo prop airplane) on our most recent field expedition. The field work went well and we got a station installed at Siple dome and one at Mt. Patterson. But then we had a little problem during take off from Mt. Patterson. Some have called it an incident, others have been calling it a hard landing (although I don't know how you can have a hard landing when you havn't actually taken off). I call it a plane crash. Basically what happened is, as the plane went to take off and we reached flying speed, one side of the plane went up and the other didn't. The left wing got caught in the ice and sent the plane tumbling. My seat came unbolted from the floor with me still strapped into the seatbelt. When we finally came to a halt, we were all in big pile in the corner of the plane with all of the equipment. We got shaken up pretty bad, but there were no major injuries other than some minor cuts and bruises. We are all doing well and thankful the crash wasn't any worse. The plane, however, did not fair so well. The wings, props, and tail all got bent up pretty bad. The landing gear, skis, and hydraulic system (the red stain in the pictures below is hydraulic fluid) all were ripped from the plane and strewn about the ice. She won't be flying any time soon. After the crash, we got out of the plane and broke out the survival bags. We set up a camp and used the stove to make some fresh drinking water. We were in constant radio communication with McMurdo and after about 20 hours stranded on the West Antarctic ice sheet, they sent two twin otters to come and rescue us. We didn't have very much food so they sent some hot soups, stews, and sandwiches with the twin otters. It was a pretty delicious meal since all we really had to eat was some emergency survival bars. But actually I thought the bars were pretty tasty. People seemed to get a kick out of watching me eat them anyway.

We have come across a couple of news articles about the crash. Here are the links.

NY Times - This one is pretty accurate except they don't mention the seismic stations, they just call them 'other sensors'

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/22/world/22briefs-polar.html

The New Zealand Press - This one is way off. It is filled with inaccuracies and misinformation.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4332990a6530.html

I think the Washington Post is planning something in the near future as well - hopefully with a picture. I'll post the link when it comes out.

Thanks to everyone for your comments! Keep them coming. I love hearing from you guys. In the next post I will have some pictures of our station installs and life at McMurdo. We will have some down time over the next week or so so I hope to do a lot of blogging. Merry Christmas everybody!

Ok, on to the pictures. Not sure how long these will stay up. NSF may have some spies out there trying to prevent these pictures from getting out. They told us not to share them for "a while" and in my book "a while" is a pretty vague term so I'll go ahead and assume it has been "a while."

Before...

After.

Our field camp with Mt. Patterson in the background.

Some more shots of camp.

Rescue!

lab photos

2007-12-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

Greetings,

Hope everyone is doing well back in North America. Here at the bottom of the world we are busy testing equipment and sending supplies to our field camp in the Patriot Hills. We should have everything ready to go by this evening. It will be nice to finally have some down time. So far we've been working about 14 hours a day. But before we head to the Patriot Hills, we will install two stations via fixed wing from McMurdo. We will fly a C-130 to Siple dome on Monday, install a station, spend the night there at a field camp in a mountain tent, then fly to Mt. Patterson the next day on the Basler, install a station, then return to Siple dome for another night, and then fly back to McMurdo on the C-130. I don't expect any of that to happen on schedule but we shall see. The planes are frequently grounded due to weather. And in this case we will have to have good weather at 3 sites to complete the mission. Not likely. I've posted a map of our field sites below so you can get an idea of where we'll be. Also, you can get more information about the project and each of our field sites including photos, aerial photos, geologic information, etc from www.polenet.org. Just click on each of the site names. There are lots of good pictures of Mt. Patterson. Check it out by following the link below!

http://polenet.org/POLENET_Map/map.html

Send your questions/comments/feedback! Scott, Kaare, and Krystal - you guys are awesome. Thanks for posting. But I'm just kind of curious if anyone else is actually reading this blog...

Ok, on to the pictures. These are just some shots from around our lab on the ice runway. We are working out of a Jamesway. Which I believe is surplus from the Korean War. Apparently, the only ones left in the world are down here on the ice. Basically it is a tent in the shape of a half-cylinder equipped with power and the internet.

Me in the Jamesway.

Me doing some equipment testing. The big orange box is our station box that holds the electronic equipment and keeps it warm. We have a heating pad and about a foot of blue foam to keep the box insulated. We also get some heat produced from the equipment itself and the batteries. The box is designed to hold 10 12V batteries that will power the station through the long, sunless, Antarctic winter. During the summer months we will power the station with solar energy.

Our equipment inside the station box. The large orange box on the left is the Q330 datalogger and and the small orange box is the baler (flash memory drive) and the clear see through box is the power control unit. On the right is a battery.

This is a picture of the seismometer (or sensor) itself. It is the main component of the entire station. It sits on the bedrock outside of the station box. The sensor is designed to record the ground motion of the earth in the vertical, NS, and EW directions over a broad range of frequencies. This allows us to analyze the three dimensional ground motions for very fast movements such as earthquakes and very slow movements such as tides.

Dome covers for the sensors (seismometer). These will help protect the sensor from the harsh elements and provide thermal stability. We expect the average ambient temperature during the winter to be about -50F. The covers are insulated to prevent large temperature fluctuations.

View out the door of our Jamesway of a C-130 with the Transantarctic Mountains in the background. I think the Transantarctics are the most beautiful mountain range in the world.

Me out the door of our Jamesway with the C-130 Hercules fleet in the background. Around here we call them Hercs or herkybirds.

A shot of me on the ice runway.

Me in front of the Jamesway. (Sorry, these are all overexposed. Obviously I didn't take them.)

The outside of our Jamesway with some equipment testing going on.

Inside the Jamesway.

View from the rear of our Jamesway of Mt. Erebus. Mt. Erebus is an active volcano. However, it is the non-explosive type so no need to worry. On some days you can observe a steam plume spouting from the top of the mountain. The plume is not volcanic gases but rather condensing water vapor over the hot lava lake at the crater. If I can catch a good picture of this phenomonomenon, I will post it.

In the next post, pictures from Mactown (McMurdo Station) or as people have been calling it around here lately, McMudpuddle.

Mitchell

deployment photos

2007-12-10T12:35:00.000-08:00

At long last, some pictures from the ice! This should be a good start. I'll post some more soon. It takes a long time to upload pictures from here...

This is a group of photo of the portion of our field team that traveled together to the ice. From left to right - Mitchell, Brian, Eric, and Stephanie. Brian is an engineer from the PASSCAL instrument center at New Mexico Tech and Eric and Stephanie are researchers from the Ohio State University. Eric and Stephanie will be installing GPS instruments to study millimeter scale plate motions/plate deformation. Brian and I will be installing seismometers to record the earthquake activity and study the material properties of the Antarctic lithosphere.

These are some shots from inside the plane. This year we flew down on a C-17. It is a lot nicer than the C-130 Hercules. It is also a lot faster because it has jet engines instead of turbo props (we will fly in the C-130 to the deep field so I'll post some pictures of that later). The flight took about 5 hours. It takes about 7.5-8 in the C-130. And the a C-17 has a lavatory! (as opposed to a bucket, which is what you get on the C-130) All of the long range flights are run by the Air National Guard.

Here is the C-17 on the ice runway. They actually land the plane on the frozen sea ice of the Ross Sea. It was a pretty disorienting feeling getting off the plane and stepping onto the ice.

Here is our transportation from the ice runway to McMurdo Station.

More photos coming soon!

Christchurch, NZ

2007-12-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

Well, I finally made it to the ice. It's been a long couple of days, but I finally got a chance to post some pictures. We are busy testing equipment and getting it ready to send to the deep field. We've uncovered a major problem with one of our sensor cables so it looks like we will have to take them all apart and re-pin them. That means plenty of long days/nights in the lab for the next week or so. But other than that all is well.

Ok, on to the pictures. These are just some shots I took while I was in New Zealand. I'll try and post some pictures from the ice in the next day or two.

The wizard! This guy is a real nut job. He stands on a ladder in front of the cathedral and preaches to anyone who will listen. He actually has some pretty offensive stuff to say, but no one takes him very seriously. He was good for a laugh or two while I ate lunch.

Here is the beautiful town of Christchurch, NZ. I rank it up there with Madison and Boulder as one of my favorite cities. There is a little stream that runs through town...and it's loaded with brown trout!

Ah, the Christchurch botanic gardens. Absolutely gorgeous. Way better than MO botanical gardens. And they're free! I spent an afternoon here taking pictures and reading a book. I had to take in all the green I could before heading south.

Ok, that's all for now. I'll get some pics from McMurdo up in the next day or two. Now I'm off to get some sleep.

ice bound

2007-12-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

Hi friends and family!

Thanks for checking out my blog. I think this is the best way to stay in contact with everyone while I'm in Antarctica. I plan to post some stories and pictures about once a week or so. I'll try and make it fun and interesting so check back often! And also be sure and leave me lots of messages/comments. I'll be missing you all.

Mitchell