AGAP-SOUTH CAMP, ANTARCTICA– There are finally planes in the airspace of AGAP-South! We flew our first survey lines during the transit of scientists from Pole to our main camp. With the first flight, came the first observation of peaked bedrock under relatively thin ice. Thus far the radar shows the bedrock to be about 1.8 miles below the ice sheet surface and its elevation varies in some regions by up to half a mile. Hard to believe that just under this endless expanse of ice there are mountains. It’s such a secretive part of the world.

While our research group is here doing an airborne survey, another group based out of Penn State University is installing and servicing seismometers. The airborne side is called GAMBIT while the seismic side is called GAMSEIS. Together we are the AGAP project and the occupants of AGAP-South.

View across AGAP-South at one of the rare times when both planes are grounded.

Unlike the work I am here to do, GAMSEIS is a multi-year project that began last year. Over the course of the project, whenever there is a large enough earthquake, waves of energy will pass through the earth and be recorded at the GAMSEIS seismic stations. The GAMSEIS group will return and collect their seismometers along with the record of seismic events. Using those data, they’ll be able to piece together the story underlying the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains. We’ll better understand how the mountains were built and the nature of the mantle, the molten layer of Earth, that lies below.

This is the inside of the Jamesway tent where the scientists sleep. It’s hot, crowded but somehow still a welcome change from being outdoors.

The weather on Christmas Day forced us to take a break and enjoy the holiday. Both science teams were grounded due to low visibility caused by blowing snow coming out of the South. Despite our 24-hour schedule, dinner at AGAP is the meal most of our population of 42 actually are awake and present to eat. It falls right between the morning flight and evening flight for both science groups and those working the night shift have usually just gotten up. Although one of the cooks is suffering a rib injury, Christmas Dinner was a meal to be reckoned with. It was also a great chance for the whole camp to relax and get to know each other individually rather than categorically as science, flight crew, or staff.

For me part of the holiday excitement was that those of us on the GAMBIT side got to share some of our first data products! We’ve waiting a long time to see these radar profiles with plenty of peaks! The days ahead hold a lot of the same, but there are still firsts and discoveries to be made. I wonder when we will find the biggest mountain peaks and the biggest lake!

A sun dog over our camp.

So at the end and after another set of long Skidoo rides to prep the GPS stations for next winter and pick up the passive seismometers, the Basler came and picked us and our gear up and whisked us off to McMurdo. And after a few days of returning equipment and shipping other equipment home, we left for Christchurch, which is where I am writing this update.

Now that the Antarctica portion of the journey is over, you would think that the drama and excitement is over. However, with science, that’s not the case! Because our instrumentation is so sensitive, and we have collected so much data, it is often hard to know immediately what your data will yield – that’s why we have the rest of the year to toil in front of a computer screen! Our group is just now on the verge of making our little discoveries, because all the data must now be processed and interpreted, which is the fun part! It’s the scientific intrigue that brings people by the hundreds down South and the discoveries that come from that which makes all the bodily abuse worth it. The Antarctic continent has infinite mysteries still left to discover and we can only chip away at them one long and brutal field season at a time.

Professor Slawek Tulaczyk examines the data while still in camp.

We spent the first week or so in the deep field visiting GPS stations that were left out on the ice over-winter and setting out passive seismometers. Whillans Ice Stream behaves in a unique way – it slips twice a day in episodes that are linked to the tidal cycle. The passive seismometers record this slip, because it is a rupture similar to an earthquake, but much slower.

Here I’ve dug a hole and then placed a passive seismometer in the hole. I am roped in due to crevasses in the area.

To get to all of our sites, we used Ski-doos with sledges attached to the rear with all our science and safety gear attached. During setup, at the beginning of the season, and takedown, at the end, Slawek and I would go on rides covering over 150 km and lasting 9-10 hours. It is hard not to hesitate getting on the Skidoos in the morning, when the temperature is at 20 degrees below zero Celsius and there is already a 20 knot wind blowing, knowing you will be going 30 mph sometimes directly into it!

Our Ski-doos with sledges attached to the rear with all our science and safety gear attached.

Because our bodies have to generate all this heat, it is important to stay well-fed and healthy out on the ice. One of the breakfast favorites was frozen eggs. In the video, you see a block of eggs sizzling on the pan. In order to break off a chunk from the main supply, a hacksaw and hammer/chisel are required.

The Ferrar Glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains.

This is going to be a completely new Antarctic experience for me. My previous work in the Dry Valleys was remote in the sense that we were not at the research station, but we were always less than a 45-minute helicopter flight from resources. Tango 1 is truly going to be a deep field experience. I am very much looking forward to being there, and excited to be on the advance team…I mean isn’t this one of the reasons I got into geology in the first place?

From our camp we will have two Twin Otter aircraft, a 20-passenger STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada, operating to facilitate the installations of three high precision GPS systems and seismometers.

Location of POLENET’s Tango 1 deep field camp.

Tango 1 camp, located at 86° 21′ S, 136° 57′ W, is approximately 220 miles from the South Pole. However, not only is this deep field experience different from the field sites I am used to in Antarctica, so is the altitude. Tango camp sits around 8500 feet in elevation. The elevation and latitude will make it cold and harder to work. This will be the highest elevation I have ever worked at and with that come its own set of unique considerations.

The Transantarctic Mountains.

Physio altitude is a term that describes what altitude your body feels like it is at. The barometric pressure does not affect the saturation of oxygen in the air (oxygen is consistently about 20% of the atmosphere around you) and neither does altitude for the matter, but altitude does change the density of that oxygen. As you go higher in elevation the same amount of space contains less oxygen. The lower the barometric pressure that oxygen gets less is that same space making it harder to breathe in the needed amount of oxygen. Antarctica is notoriously known for it’s low-pressure weather systems. As these low-pressure systems pass over you it will quickly change the altitude in which body thinks it at. Tango 1 camp at 8500 feet the physio altitude can change to make your body feel thousands of feet higher.

I will not have an Internet connection from Tango 1 camp but I will have a satellite phone in which I plan to keep you updated.