Thanks again for your interest in our project and all your great questions. I’ll answer your most recent questions here:

1) The internet that we use here at our field camp is sent by microwaves through repeaters back to McMurdo Station. The repeaters are basically communication towers that are on the high mountains around us. From McMurdo, we get connected to the rest of the world via satellite.

2) We are a mostly American team working on this project. The 2 drillers who drill through the sea ice so the air gun can be lowered into the water are both from New Zealand. There is a scientist doing a gravity study in conjunction with our project who is also from New Zealand. His graduate student, who is also here with us, is originally from Ireland. She lives in New Zealand as well. So the long and short of it, we all speak English.

3) Nearby McMurdo Station is Scott Base which is a New Zealand research center. Every Thursday evening is “American Night” and shuttles are run back and forth from McMurdo. Otherwise, to be able to visit Scott Base, you would need an invitation from a Kiwi. Most other research facilities are too far away from where we are in McMurdo Sound to visit.

4) Not an awkward question at all. In fact, it’s quite a common one. Let me first say that we harvest ice from an iceberg that is about 3.6km away from our camp that we melt down for our water. Because it’s an iceberg, it’s fresh water when we melt it down. If we were using snow (which there really isn’t much of near us, just a few inches covering the sea ice) it would most likely be a bit salty because the sea ice forms from frozen ocean water. To answer this question, at camp we have an outhouse tent. We have a drilled hole into (not through) the ice. Otherwise, most often everyone carries around a “pee bottle” that can be used either in our own personal tents or out in the field.

(Thanks for the post! Added the blog to my RSS-feed, now read I will be reading it on a regular basis…)

1. How do you get connected to the internet down in the Antarctic?
2. Do you work with scientists from other countries. And if so, how do you talk to each other? What language or languages do you use to communicate?
3. Are you allowed to visit other country’s stations, or must you get special permission?
4. Now for our rather “awkward” question. What about bathroom issues? What do you do if you are in the field? We know you must keep the snow pure if your using it for water. So what do you do? Do you dig latrines or is the ground too hard or frozen for this to work?

We can’t wait to hear from you!
Mrs. Hutchins 6th Grade World Explorations Class

So glad to hear from you all. Thanks for your good wishes and excellent questions. I’ll answer them here.

The inside of the Quinzee we made was a brilliant color blue when there was strong sunlight shining through the packed snow. It was a glowing kind of blue that can’t really be explained. This diminshed a bit more to grey as the sun went behind clouds and after it set behind Mt. Discovery. But it never was truly dark inside. It was really warm inside because the snow acted as insulation to keep body heat in, and Antarctic cold out! To get a sense of the color, check out my upcoming blog about sea ice training and the ice cave we went into.

Happy Camper School was about 32 hours long, start to finish. We first had some in-class lectures, but before long, we were out in the field, learning how to survive in this extreme environment. There were other training courses we needed to take before we were ready to deploy to our field camp. Sea ice training was one of those. But we also had to learn how to ride snowmobiles, and how to be able to fix and maintain them.

Keep those questions coming. And now that we’re wired at our field camp, I should be able to get more blogs out for everyone!

Patty Williams