Enter the past:  The DC-3, or C-47 military variant, is intermediate in size and range between the Hercules and Twin Otter, and is one of the few types of aircraft that can be fitted with skis.  The first plane to land at the south pole was a C-47.  However, all of the existing airframes are very old and not suitable for sustained operations of the type we need for scientific exploration.  Fortunately, a company in Wisconsin gives these airplanes a second life by completely restoring them from the bare frame, adding more powerful and safe turbine engines, new electrical and fuel systems, flight instruments, you name it.  They even lengthen the fuselage by over a meter.  The airplanes are essentially new when they roll out of the facility.

The LC-130 Hercules (left) and C-47 (right).

Our project saw the need for such an aircraft and undertook the modification of one to conduct long-range airborne surveys in Antarctica and Greenland.  Last season in Antarctica we proved its capability by surveying a vast, largely unknown part of East Antarctica using fuel and facilities at the coastal stations of McMurdo (US), Casey (Australia), and Dumont d’Urville (France).  We made two stops at Concordia Station (French/Italian) in the interior and obtained about two dozen barrels of fuel there, but that was the only interior resource we used.  We were also able to pack up and move ourselves between these stations while conducting surveys along the way.  This is a first, and has opened the door to a new era of Antarctic exploration.

I have included some video of our unique aircraft and team members in action.  In the next installment I’ll explain a bit about radar and show you some data that we’ve acquired here, since that provides the first and best picture of what is below the ice.  Stay tuned.

If you didn’t know, the JOIDES Resolution takes her name from the HMS Resolution. The HMS Resolution was a sloop in the British Royal Navy and the ship which Captain James Cook commanded on his second and third voyages. July 13th marks the 237th anniversary of the beginning of her second voyage under his command. But the HMS Resolution carried only 112 people, while the JOIDES Resolution is carrying 126! Okay, we’ll ignore the fact that the JR is more than 4 times the size of her namesake, and we travel in far more comfort and safety than Cook probably could have imagined.

The HMS Resolution (1771-1782), James Cook’s ship, watercolour by midshipman Henry Roberts.

The important point to note is that both ships were on missions of exploration, and were filled with volunteers willing to travel great lengths to forward the cause of scientific understanding. Another more meaningful difference is that Cook’s second voyage took him to the Antarctic, while ours takes us to the Bering Sea. It is difficult to say what information this trip may yield, but it promises to be great, and will fill a void in our current understanding of global climate change.

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So what have you been up to, you might ask?
Over the past few days the scientists on board the JR have continued preparing their sampling plans. Think of it as a trip to the store with 30 or so shoppers, purchasing goods for one home. You don’t want everyone to pile up in aisle three looking for toothpaste. We need to share resources, effort and eventually results.

We’ve also been prepping for some of the data collection. I’ve helped clean up cut syringes, prepare rhizones for pore water sampling and various other tasks that are all intended to make things run smoothly when we first have cores to look at.

I’ve also been learning the ins and outs of the video conferencing abilities of the JR. I should be able to contact my classes back in Austell, Georgia, in a few weeks. I look forward to telling them what I am up to, and letting them know I expect them to do some serious work while I am gone! Well, I guess that’s enough for now. I’ll be back soon with more. We should hit our first drilling site some time around 6:00pm local time tomorrow, July 16th. And then the fun really begins. Talk to you soon!

Long before anyone ever set eyes on Antarctica, many were sure it was there. Belief in a Terra Australis Incognita—“Unknown Southern Land”—first took hold among the ancient Greeks. Great believers in symmetry, the Greeks were convinced that the great landmass in the Northern Hemisphere would have to be balanced by an equally great landmass in the Southern Hemisphere.

A 1570 world map showing a vastly exaggerated southern continent.

Confirmation of the southern continent was long in coming; Terra Australis remained incognita for centuries. Captain Cook set out on a massive three-year search for it in 1772. After being driven back north again and again by pack ice, Cook concluded that if there was a southern continent, it wasn’t worth getting to.

Cook unwittingly sowed the seeds of future exploration, however, with his detailed reports of ample seal and whale populations in the Southern Ocean. Hunters flocked to the area and drove seal populations to near extinction. In 1821, a seal hunter driven off-course by a violent storm was the first to land on Antarctica. With seal populations waning, however, interest in exploring the high southern latitudes waned as well.

Food provisions sit frozen in time inside Scott’s hut. Various parties of British explorers used the hut for survival in the early 1900s. Courtesy of the National Science Foundation.

Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition, having reached the South Pole, January 18th, 1912. None in this party would survive the journey back.

But in the late 1800s, a frenzy of whale hunting in the Southern Ocean spurred a frenzy of exploration; the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration began. Akin to the “space race” of the 1960s, countries vied to be first to explore the icy continent, and reaching the South Pole became a worldwide obsession. A team led by British explorer Robert Scott came within 463 miles (877 km) of the pole in 1902. Another British team, this time led by Ernest Shackleton, came even closer in year 1908, but was forced to turn back just 97 miles (180 km) from the goal.

Traveling by dogsled, a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen was the first to arrive at the South Pole on December 14, 1911. A competing British team led by Scott arrived just a month later, greeted by the demoralizing site of the Norwegian flag. Plagued by accidents and storms, and short of food, all five members of the Scott team perished on the return trip.

Ernest Shackleton led a later ill-fated effort to traverse the entire continent by dogsled in 1914. Before even landing, the Endurance was trapped and crushed by pack ice, leaving the crew to winter over on the ice. Shackleton and five others set out for help in a tiny lifeboat, braving 100-foot (30 m) waves in the Southern Ocean, securing a rescue by whalers four months later. Miraculously, all survived.

The Endurance stuck in the ice.

Admiral Byrd, just prior to the South Pole flight of 1929 with a stone from former pilot Floyd Bennett’s grave. Byrd dropped the stone, wrapped in the small American flag, from the plane when they were over the South Pole, in honor of his pilot of the North Pole expedition of 1926.

The onset of World War I cooled interest in Antarctica, but exploration began anew with the advent of the airplane. American pilot Robert Byrd was the first to fly over the South Pole in 1929 and made repeated flights over the continent during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Scientifically minded, Byrd conducted many experiments in his Antarctic travels, setting the precedent for Antarctica as a land devoted to scientific research.

After World War II, countries around the globe scrambled to establish footholds—and claim territory—on Antarctica. A flurry of base-building ensued. Many bases were also built in anticipation of the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year (IGY). U.S. base-building efforts centered on McMurdo Station (1955) and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station (1957). Tensions over territorial claims led to the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, establishing Antarctica as a place for only peaceful, scientific purposes, and excluding military or mining activities.

Today, exploration of Antarctica is still mainly scientific, though tourists are “exploring” the continent in increasing numbers. In 2007, 46,000 tourists visited Antarctica, mostly on cruise ships. Fearing disruption of the breeding sites of penguins and other wildlife, some are calling for tighter limits on tourism to reduce environmental impact.