Spending a week in New Zealand was great. Christchurch really has a good variety of restaurants to choose from and it was nice to be able to take a shower every day instead of our 2 per week. You also tend to forget how nice humidity is! The South Pole is so cold and dry that it wreaks havoc on the sinuses and skin. Aside from enjoying some showers and food, I was able to meet up with a friend from high school and college in Queenstown. Queenstown is probably one of the most beautiful towns I’ve seen. It’s set right next to The Remarkables mountain range which provides a gorgeous backdrop. I was even able to get a round of golf in at the spectacular Jack’s Point golf course! The R&R definitely did its job and I came back to the Pole feeling refreshed and ready to endure the winter.

When I got back to the Pole, I’m sure my partner at ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory) was happy. He did not arrive early enough in the summer to take advantage of R&R so he was left to take care of things on his own while I was soaking it up in New Zealand. He must have been busy while I was gone because things looked great when I got back!

A view of Akaroa Harbor.

A paraglider suspended over Queenstown.

A beautiful round of golf in Queenstown!

Another great view from the golf course.

About a week after I returned from R&R I was getting ready to head out to ARO when I sat down and my teeth kind of bumped together. It ended up knocking off a piece of tooth that was repaired last spring. Luckily I was able to grab a quick flight to McMurdo and see the dentist only days before she was leaving the ice! It really would have been annoying having to deal with a broken front tooth for 8 months through the winter. She did a great job on repairing it though and actually looks better than the previous repair job.

It turns out that this broken tooth was a blessing in disguise. On my flight back to McMurdo, I was able to capture some spectacular video of the Transantarctic Mountains. We also went over the Dry Valleys, out over the open water, and then ended with a great fly-by of McMurdo. Well worth the dental work!

A view out of the LC-130 window as we enter the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

A glacier spilling down through a valley.

Another glacier carving it’s way.

Beautiful blue sky over some peaks and valleys.

The Dry Valleys.

Some broken off sea ice in the Ross Sea.

Mt Erebus.

McMurdo Station Fly-by.

Now as we approach mid-February, people are leaving by the bundles. A little less than 2 weeks ago we had about 250 people on station. Now we are down to about 125. There are 2 more major passenger flights out of here in which we will lose about 80 more people leaving us with about 48 people for the winter. It’s strange having all the open space in the galley during meal times. And it’s only going increase the next several days. Tomorrow is the last day for any outgoing mail, and Monday, February 15th, we have our last flights! The sun is very noticeably lower in the sky and temperatures the past week have been much colder. Today is the coldest day since I arrived here last October at -40F. Hard to believe it’s just about here but it is. Winter!

Our camp consists of nothing more than three Scott Tents, one Endurance Tent, scientific equipment, and the bare minimum of supplies to comfortably survive… or at least survive mildly comfortably. To minimize our camp footprint and lessen the use of helicopter dependency we decided on a greywater-free camp. Greywater is any sort of wastewater resulting from cleaning, cooking, or bathing. A few weeks in the field can lead to well over 100 gallons (or >1000 lbs) of wastewater which must then be helicoptered back to McMurdo and treated. My opinion is that it is much more environmental friendly (and saves us valuable helo hours) to not create greywater to begin with.

For the duration of the 5-6 week field season we do not have running water, shower, or wash with a nice warm wash cloth. If we feel dirty under our multiple layers of clothes we will simply wash ourselves with wet-wipes. Washing our hands is accomplished through instant hand sanitizer (i.e. Purell).

Mealtime can be a challenge in itself. Since wastewater cannot be produced we do not allow for excess water after cooking our pasta meals. (Thankfully we bring out dehydrated green peppers and onions just in case we added too much water to the pot). Cleaning pans, utensils, plates, and mugs consists of a quick wipe down with a dry paper towel. I like to think that the cold conditions that we live in keeps the dishes somewhat sanitary.

Tanner “Dishwashing” in Beacon Valley.

Urine is not considered greywater and is disposed of in 55 gallon drums (or “U-barrels”) at field camps. We are given 1-liter “pee bottles” to use during the day when we are away from camp. We carry these in our backpacks until we return to camp and deposit the urine into the U-barrel. Every year, someone will inevitably let their bottle freeze.

Two liters of urine brought back to camp to be poured into the 55 gallon urine barrels.

The Antarctic field experience would not be complete without the use of our camp toilet which is nothing more than a box with a trash bag lined 5 gallon bucket beneath it. As the bucket fills (weekly basis) the bag is tied, the bucket is sealed, and it returns to McMurdo on the next helicopter flight. For obvious reasons we search long and hard during camp put-in for a windless, private place for the box; but usually the view from the box is spectacular!

A typical field camp restroom in the Dry Valleys protected nicely from wind behind a huge rock.

The gorgeous view from our bathroom looking north towards the Taylor Glacier.

A small storm came in during the late afternoon and left a minor dusting of snow further down valley. Visibility quickly diminishes with the storm. Typically bad visibility in Antarctica is due to ground snow being blown around by the wind which can cause for a complete “white-out”. However this seems less common in the Dry Valleys where we work on a terrestrial landscape opposed to working on exposed ice which is often covered by a thin layer of snow. Finally, the camp experienced a beautiful late evening; one of many thus far in Beacon Valley this year!

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 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.

Standing in a polygon trough on a snowy day in Beacon Valley.

Helicopter day trip away from our main camp in Beacon Valley.

Coring of the underlying glacial ice, Beacon Valley.

Beacon Valley: home for the next 7 weeks.

Taking orientation of sand veins within the buried ice.

A collapse of the Antarctic ice sheets would raise global sea levels approximately 180 feet (60 m) with devastating consequences for near-shore and low-elevation communities. To better understand the response of the Antarctic ice sheets to future changes in climate, quantitative geomophologist Doug Kowalewski and colleagues from Boston University are working to understand the ancient climate of Antarctica and the corresponding stability of the glaciers and ice sheets. Buried alpine glacier ice was discovered two decades ago in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, a predominantly ice-free region roughly the size of Rhode Island. The buried glacier is allegedly the oldest on earth with an age of more than 8 million years; that would be almost ten times older than ice currently being cored from the Antarctic ice sheets.

If the ice is indeed that old, gases trapped within the buried glacier ice represent a potential archive of climate data stretching back to the time of the earliest hominids. Doug Kowalewski (UMass, Amherst) along with colleagues from Boston University, Brown University and Colgate spent October to December camped in Beacon Valley (77.859 S, 160.574 E) coring the alpine glacier ice. The ice cores were shipped to Boston and Princeton universities where analysis of the trapped gases will provide a more robust chronology for the glacier and provide insight about past atmospheric temperatures and precipitation.

To establish further evidence that buried glaciers can persist for over 8 million years in the dry, albeit cold environment of Antarctica, Doug conducted in-situ experiments and modeling studies to calculate the existing rate of glacier ice sublimation (the change of state from solid directly to gas, a process that slowly reduces the size of glacier and over time may eliminate the glacier completely). Doug also ran regional climate model simulations at the UMass Amherst Climate System Research Center to resolve whether sustained cold climate conditions necessary for long-term ice preservation occurred during the lifetime of the glacier specifically during warmer times in Earth’s history (episodes of higher atmospheric CO2 and increased solar radiation due to Earth’s orbital changes). For model input, Doug and his colleagues monitored atmospheric temperatures, wind speed, amount of solar radiation received, and relative humidity. Glacier ice temperatures and overlying rock and soil temperatures were monitored in Beacon Valley. These modeling efforts provide increased evidence that buried ice and a super-arid, cold-polar climate have sustained in parts of Antarctica for millions of years.

Doug Kowalewski’s field site, Beacon Valley (yellow square), sits at 1500 m in elevation and is in close proximity to the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (left of image).

Hassan is part of the glaciology team for the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research site (LTER for short), which is led by Andrew Fountain of Portland State. The LTER Network includes 26 sites mostly in the US, and includes ecosystems from the poles to the tropics. Scientists study the areas from many angles, combining their research to give a broad view of how ecosystems work. (Video by Lisa Strong-Aufhauser)

Canada Glacier with frozen Lake Hoare in the background.

Summer melting from the Canada Glacier feeds a stream that flows into Lake Hoare.

The Dry Valleys are dry because very little snow falls here, the average water content is less than a centimeter. Yet a fully functioning ecosystem exists here, in the ice-covered lakes and the soils of the valley floor. Even though the ecosystem is all but invisible to the naked eye, it still has a basic food web: primary producers (mats of moss and algae in the lakes, bacteria, yeast, fungi and other microbial life in the soils ), grazers (microscopic invertebrates called rotifers and tardigrades), with the top of the food chain consisting of tiny nematode worms. Curiously, there are no known predators in the Dry Valleys soils. These valleys constitute a Long-Range Ecological Research (LTER) study site and represent what scientists believe might be a model for life on Mars if it exists.

Lisa Strong on a hike with Canada Glacier behind her.

The origins of Seuss Glacier pouring through a mountain pass in the Dry Valleys.

Lisa and I went for a walk up the Taylor Valley to see whether we could uncover any evidence of life and saw little, except for a couple of long-dead seal mummies (why they traveled so far from the sea ice is anyone’s guess) and some algae-covered rocks and brown floating scum, looking for all the world like whipped chocolate mousse. We did see plenty of wind-scoured rocks and glaciers pouring through gaps in the surrounding mountains.

Bones and skin of a seal mummy that perished hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Biological scum on Lake Chad.

For easier walking, I tried to cross the moat between land and solid (white) lake ice. What I thought was thick ice wasn’t and I broke through up to my knees for my own version of the polar plunge. After changing into dry pants and socks, we continued on our walk but the only macroscopic life we saw was a lone skua winging up the valley.

Mary after breaking through lake ice.

I knew I needed to dig deeper, so I’ll turn to the LTER scientists studying the different parts of this ecosystem from the glaciers that feed life-giving water to the lakes and soils, to the ice-covered lake waters that support microbial life, to the soils that provide habitat to bacteria, yeast and fungi, and invertebrate creatures that make up “charasmatic megafauna” of the Dry Valleys. Look for upcoming video interviews with these LTER scientists.

Glaciologist Hassan Basagic of Portland State University explaining the dynamic of Canada Glacier to Lisa.

Ms. Ellwood, a veteran science teacher, is also an accomplished ice diver working with a science research group in Antarctica’s Dry Valleys. Headed by Dr. Peter Doran from the University of Illinois, they are studying the fresh water lakes of that remote region. The lakes form primarily from glacier runoff, as it rarely snows and never rains in this part of the continent.

This year the team brought down the Endurance, a large robotic camera and data collector, or ‘Bot’ as it is affectionately called. Gathering data in larger amounts and in a shorter time than humans could do from the surface or diving, this sophisticated machine will map the floor, and provide water analysis of these remarkable lakes. You can learn more about their project and see pictures of the Bot here.

Not to be left out of the project, the Rye students designed and built their own robotic camera which had to be able to function in the extreme cold salty water of the Antarctica ocean. Getting the neutral buoyancy just right and using materials that were appropriate in Antarctica’s fragile environment provided many challenges, but all were well met.

“ScubaDoobaDoo” was successfully launched in the ocean and took its first underwater video in the Ross Sea, Antarctica, November 2008. Its performance was outstanding, it was easy to maneuver and the videos were excellent, reported Ms. Ellwood.

The students can be very proud of their accomplishment. The students’ project was funded in part by the school’s PTA.

ScubaDoobaDoo.

ScubaDoobaDoo’s camera in front uses the LED light source next to it. Under the ice in Antarctica it is not only very cold, but very dark. The switch box houses the controls: right and left motors for turning and forward and back motion, the top motor for up and down motion. The video is sent to the DVD player through the 100 foot cable attached to the camera.

ScubaDoobaDoo taking a video of me taking a picture of it.

Close up of one of the motors.

Robin Ellwood getting ready to launch ScubaDoobaDoo in the fish tank, Crary Laboratory, McMurdo.

ScubaDoobaDoo at neutral buoyancy in -1.6 C ocean water. Ready for action.

ScubaDoobaDoo next to the ‘Bot’.

Next to the Bot, ScubaDoobaDoo was overheard saying “When I grow up, I want to be like him.” He is well on his way.

In the video below, see ScubaDoobaDoo perform in one of the large aquarium tanks in McMurdo.

John Weller prepares for a dive in McMurdo Sound.

Alas, on this trip to Antarctica all my underwater exploration has been by proxy through John’s photos and footage, but also through the unique under-ice vehicles SCINI and Endurance. SCINI (Submersible Capable of Under Ice Navigation) is a remote operated vehicle, or ROV, designed and operated by the team of Dr. Stacy Kim and Bob Zook of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. We dropped in on a SCINI demonstration the first week we were in McMurdo, an event Bob and Stacy hosted for the community here.

Stacy Kim and Cameo Slaybaugh drilling a hole for SCINI to dive through.

Stacy Kim with SCINI, the ROV that lets her explore under-ice marine ecosystems.

Here’s video of SCINI being deployed through her dive hole:

This slender little ROV, only six inches in diameter, can fit through an eight-inch hole drilled into the sea ice. SCINI is portable (Bob calls it a backpack ROV) so it only needs two or three people to launch and operate it. SCINI’s flexibility allows the science and engineering team to explore very remote places in waters up to 1000 feet (300 meters) deep and inaccessible to SCUBA divers. The ROV is being used by Stacy, who is a benthic ecologist, to study the creatures that live on the bottom (“benthos”) of the ocean. But it’s also a tool that can be used by lots of other scientists in many disciplines. SCINI can provide underwater eyes to ocean sediment coring operations, like ANDRILL, that let scientists see the drill core and properly adjust their setting. It can be also used to map krill distribution for David Ainley’s whale and penguin studies and to map the ocean floor.

SCINI engineer Bob Zook driving the ROV with a game controller.

SCINI being prepared for a dive by Francois Cazenave.

In this video, Stacy explains how SCINI navigation works underwater:

Last year, Bob and Stacy used SCINI to explore some “lost” experiments in McMurdo Sound placed there in the 1960s by benthic ecologists John Oliver and Paul Dayton. Searching the sea floor with SCINI, they were able to locate these tethered experiments and hope to come back next year to collect samples from the sites. This season they took SCINI to three different locations near McMurdo station to study communities of sponges under sea ice and permanent ice shelves and also to explore areas where icebergs have scoured the bottom. For more about Stacy’s research, watch the webcast we did with them in McMurdo.

SCINI with her underwater lights turned on.

I also got a wonderful opportunity to watch the deployment of an underwater bot much larger and more complex than SCINI. Called Endurance (or affectionately dubbed “phatty” by Stacy Kim) this autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, was developed by Stone Aerospace and funded by NASA. The research camp at Lake Bonney in the McMurdo Dry Valleys is being run by Peter Doran of the University of Illinois in Chicago with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Traveling by helicopter out to the site, I caught my first glimpse of Blood Falls, a famous feature on the Taylor Glacier first described by British Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. The striking color comes from an iron-containing salt, ferrous hydroxide, that seeps out of the glacier and stains the water and ice a rusty red. After landing, I strapped ice stabilizers on my boots and headed out on my first walk on a frozen lake. The patterns of the ice were gorgeous.

On the helo trip out to Lake Bonney, we saw glaciers pouring out of the Dry Valleys.

Blood Falls gets its color from iron salts seeping out of Taylor Glacier in the Dry Valleys.

Arriving at a big canvas-covered “garage” on the lake ice, I watched as the roughly spherical-shaped Endurance was deployed. Endurance requires a much larger hole than SCINI and the use of a hoist and several people to guide it into and down the ice hole. Once through the ice, the bot is programmed to take measurements throughout the water column, map the bottom of Lake Bonney and probe for evidence of microbial life. For this experiment, the bot is tethered with a fiber-optic cable that can send photos back to the team in the tent and keep track of its whereabouts.

The Endurance command center on Lake Bonney.

Patterns of ice on Lake Bonney.

Patterns of ice on Lake Bonney.

Enurance is being used in the Dry Valleys LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) program to better understand the ecosystem of Lake Bonney. But a scaled-down version of Endurance could one day probe under the ice of Jupiter’s moon Europa, perhaps the best candidate for finding water and alien microbial life in our solar system.

Endurance is being hoisted to its dive hole.