A few of our several iceberg choices in Bay of Sails.

Icebergs are moved by wind and currents, and when they come in contact with the seafloor, plough across it leaving a swath of destruction. Cape Evans, on the eastern side of McMurdo Sound, is bathed by plankton-rich water from the open Ross Sea, providing a good food resource to benthic communities during the summer months. But at Bay of Sails, on the western side of the sound, the water has spent a long time circulating in darkness under the thick ice of the permanent Ross Ice Shelf, so it is very oligotrophic, or food-poor. I am interested in the differences between how these two communities recover from iceberg disturbances.

Though the benthic communities locally are not eating well, we are!

To start this effort, we did a reconnaissance helicopter flight. Scottie, our pilot for the day, flew us in beautiful loops and spirals over the dozen icebergs scattered in the bay. We were looking for a berg that was grounded on the seafloor, was in about 50 m water depth, and was close enough to other icebergs that we had alternate target options. Since the bathymetry in this area is poorly known, I had to guess at depths based on distance from shore and iceberg height. I selected a moderate-size, tabular-looking berg about 2 km from shore. It was a good choice, but a better one was about a km further offshore, as we discovered from our initial survey with an extremely high tech weight on a tape measure.

Marco and Henry think a better iceberg is that way.

However, the helo landing site is that way.

Okay, I guess we’ll go home for now.

Parallel with selecting the camp location, we have been packing up camp gear. 335 pounds of food, 330 pounds of water, sleeping bags good to minus 40, tents, fuel for the stove and heaters, sleds, safety supplies, another 1485 pounds of stuff. And then there is the science equipment - drills, electronic gear, the ROV itself, power supplies, batteries and generators, all in all 760 pounds of toys. Then there is the 1000 pounds of people. Not to say we are fat, but several of us are up to three desserts per night. Yow!

How much stuff will fit in one helicopter? 1200 lbs in an A-Star, and 2000 lbs in a Bell212.

All of this is sorted into classifications of Can Freeze, Do Not Freeze, and Keep Frozen (some of the food). Bags and boxes are weighed and tagged. Hazardous material is certified as safe to fly. Much of the Can Freeze camp gear has gone already in an overland (well, over-sea-ice) traverse to a fueling depot about 10 km from Bay of Sails. The helicopters will carry it the rest of the way to us.

Like an n-dimensional puzzle, it all unfolds to a full field camp, dwarfed by the landscape.

My bedroom.

It’s a little nerve-wracking, making sure we remember everything, and enough of it. I have lists, and lists of lists, and I wake up in the middle of the night to make more lists. Remembering to bring all the things we needed to Antarctica was bad enough, but the field camp list must be pared to a minimum yet not leave out anything. We will get a resupply flight after a week, to bring us more water, so we do have that opportunity to fix any bads, but it would be very unproductive, not to say embarrassing, to have forgotten the batteries to the joystick to drive the ROV.

Team SCINI at field camp I: Kamille, Dustin, Isabelle, Francois, Stacy and Bob. Doh, Dustin has forgotten his black Antarctic uniform pants!

Tonight as the sun dips to touch the horizon I think that we have all we need to survive. But I am worried about the engineers getting their stuff packed; they are still out doing tests at 10 pm, 12 hours from when it must be on the helo pad. I am beginning to think that procrastination and engineering must go hand in hand. I think a walk up Ob Hill is in order to reduce my stress!

The view of Erebus and Terror from the top of Ob Hill, colored by a midnight sun.

BEACON VALLEY, ANTARCTICA– The early morning started out with blustery winds and soon snow from the polar plateau started blowing in; it was by far the worst weather we have experienced during this field season. So what do we do on a bad weather day… work. I took the video camera out in the field to capture the harsh working environment.

We began drilling the glacier ice and despite the weather conditions the day started well as we were recovering beautiful, clean, bubbly glacier ice. But soon the borehole reached a small sandy-pebbly layer within the ice and the pace of drilling came to a crawl. Drilling sediment rich ice releases enough heat to melt the ice between the sand grains. When the drill slows down the ice quickly refreezes and makes a sand ice slurry (yes, I referred to it as “crap” in the video) which adheres to the auger like cement making cleaning an arduous process.

The round depression on the top of the recovered slurry core was caused by the down-hole vacuum which assists in removing broken up rock and ice cemented debris created during drilling. Material not removed by the vacuum is hopefully recovered via use of the core barrel as shown in this video. After a few more cleaning runs with the vacuum and core barrel, we were back into clean ice once again!

The entrance to the ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory).

Those daily tasks that I mentioned mostly just involve going through all the equipment in the station and making sure that it is running correctly. Some instruments need daily adjusting to keep them acquiring good data. Others operate on their own pretty well (look for future posts to go more in depth on what exactly these instruments are and what they measure). Throw in setting up some new instruments, launching two ozonesondes (ozone measuring weather balloons) a week and flask sampling (capturing air to sample in flasks), it keeps one pretty busy especially when not really experienced with much of it.

Help has now arrived as Mark VanderRiet arrived last week and Lana Cohen has arrived today. With a couple of weeks under my belt, I am starting to feel much more comfortable on the day-to-day operations and things seem to be running smoothly for the most part. We’ve shipped most of the sampled air flasks that have accumulated over the winter back to their project locations (due to the fact that there are no flights to ship them during the winter season), and are getting ready to receive the shipment of new flasks and other supplies for the up coming year.

As for life on station, it is pretty incredible how we are living down here if you consider what a remote location this is. The room I was assigned is plenty big for my needs and is pretty comparable to the size of room that I had when I was on the NOAA Ship Fairweather. The recreation schedule here is full. Every night of the week there is something going on in the gym (volleyball seems to be the most popular), and there is a great selection of movies and TV shows in the store. The observatory is a great place to hang out in the evenings too if you want to relax and watch a movie. It also gives you a chance to shoot some evening Dobsons too (the Dobson is an ozone measuring instrument)! And by the way, winning bingo twice in one night is not a good way to make friends around here.

Once things settle down, I’m excited to show you all what kind of equipment we have at the Atmospheric Research Observatory, and what it measures. Hopefully I can get into some of the other projects that are going on down here at the Pole as well. I would think I’ll have time, I’m here for the long haul!

BEACON VALLEY, ANTARCTICA– On November 3rd the field team arrived into Beacon Valley where we will spend the next six weeks working, sleeping, and enjoying life in sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures (mean summertime temperature is approximately -13°C and the maximum summertime temperature is typically around -5°C). Our helicopter flight en-route to Beacon Valley crossed the McMurdo Sound and I was surprised to see the ice edge (where the sea ice meets with open water). It usually isn’t visible this far south until my return trip late in the summer.

The edge of the sea ice viewed north from the helicopter just 30 minutes outside of McMurdo.

View from the helicopter during our trip up the Ferrar Valley.

The 90 minute helicopter flight to Beacon Valley allowed me to reflect on the conveniences one takes for granted such as running water, warm showers, and simple means of communicating back to one’s family and friends. I will miss that. I won’t have such niceties until I return to McMurdo but at the same time the thought of my science objectives and potential for discovery that will occur between now and the next time I set foot in McMurdo has me excited to begin the field season!

Helicopter “zero-eight-hotel” leaving our Beacon Valley camp after dropping us off at the start of the field season.

We arrived into Beacon Valley to one of the most eerie / thrilling experiences of the entire Antarctic adventure. After the helicopter drops you and your camp gear off and fades away in the distance you are left in a totally foreign and cold environment.

Total silence.

You realize you are very much isolated from what we call the “real world”.

Lead driller Tanner (blue jacket) and others looking for clean glacier ice for our initial drill site.

Initial drill site. Excavation down 20-30cm to the buried glacier ice. Note the unweathered rocks “coming out” of the ice surface. As the ice sublimates (evaporates) the material in the ice moves towards the surface.

The following day the field team excavated glacial sediment to expose buried iced in search for good drilling locations (i.e. regions of clean ice). Today the helicopter transported the drilling equipment to the site, we set up the drill, and we took our first core of beautiful glacial ice this afternoon. The drill is working perfectly and we are all in good spirits.

Drilling operations.

Field freezer. Our temporary repository for ice cores before being shipped back to McMurdo.

I have now traveled 9,222 miles from my home in Flagstaff, Arizona. Soon, I will hopefully be traveling another ~2,300 miles south to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Our flight is scheduled for Friday, November 13th but weather has been preventing flights and the crew at WAIS Divide is about 2 weeks behind schedule. Right now, I am crossing my fingers for some time in New Zealand… it is MUCH warmer here than at McMurdo. Luckily, there is a great crew of fellow Antarctic scientists to pass the time with! I will keep you posted so stay tuned; I may be on the ice before we know it!

Packing for a three-month trip sounds easier than it is. I have been packing and unpacking in preparation for my adventures in Antarctica and I think I am finally ready to go! Here is a video of the packing experience (packing is now known in my household as the Duffel Shuffle). It’s a good thing my bags are packed because I leave on Monday, November 9th. Enjoy!

The previous winter-overs running the Atmospheric Research Observatory, LTJG Marc Weekley and engineer Patrick Cullis (aka Cully), were there to greet me at the ski-way, and help me with my bags. Winter-overs are people who stay on station for the 8-9 long months in which there are no flights into or out of the Pole. Temperatures are just too cold during this period for flights. Many winter-overs like Marc and Cully spend the S. Hemispheric summer months here as well making it a full year. After a few days of turnover with Marc and Cully (who were extremely patient and helpful for having just spent a winter in isolation), I was able to catch up with Marc for an interview on his thoughts, feelings and advice on spending a year at the South Pole.

Photos courtesy of:

Patrick Cullis, all aurora shots
Brian Vasel, the tower with low sun
Emrys Hall, view of ARO from tower
ME, the plain looking shot of the tower