Ice core just coming out of drill.

All of this work is completed in an 8 m (26 ft) deep trench that was painstakingly dug out last year (but with snow blowers…at least not with shovels!). This trench has been covered with a wooden roof (complete with sky lights), and makes for a fairly comfortable, albeit cold for the sake of the ice cores, working environment.

Kaitlin in the science trench.

Descending the steep stairway from the surface into the system of trenches (one trench is for the drilling operation and one is for the science operation) is otherworldly. It really looks like a civilization of trolls has dug themselves a snow palace. Think Lord of the Rings meets North Pole. Connecting the drill trench and the science trench is a wide passageway through the snow, on the other end of which is a marvel of a laboratory. Several stations are set up where different measurements are being made—each station is manned by some of the best and the brightest graduate students around. Unlike most US drilling programs, for this program, a lot of the ice core measurements are being done on site. This eliminates the risk of something happening to the precious cores before the measurements can be made and helps reduce contamination from handling the core. Basically this hole in the snow in the middle of nowhere has been turned into one of the most advanced ice core laboratories in the world.

The well-tuned processing line. We’re jammn,’ mon.

The trenches are cold, yes, but the group working keeps up morale by listening to music (lots of Bob Marley and Jack Johnson…fairly tropical selections) and taking frequent, mandatory tea and coffee breaks. There are too many nationalities (German, French, Japanese, Greek, Danish, Australian, American) in the trench to keep track of, and everyone pitches in to help everyone out, so that no one falls behind and the work continues seamlessly.

The Stations

Atsushi works the Swiss Saw, which cuts the top of the core off to leave a flat surface for measurements.

The Swiss Saw is run by Atsushi from the Low Temperature Institute in Hokkaido, Japan, who happens to be a whiz at the thing, very fast and precise. He is hard to keep up with. The Swiss saw cuts the top of the ice core off, as it is lying down horizontally. This allows for several of the next measurements to be made, as it leaves a nice flat surface to work on.

The line scan. Bubbles in the ice are visible as the line scanner moves over the core.

Vasileois carefully preparing the ice core for the line scan.

The line scan is run by Vasileios from Denmark. The line scanner is a video camera set on a track that records an image of the cores after Vas, and his helper Kaitlin (Kaitlin agreed to help out for a bit in the science trench after we had most of our work done), have carefully shaved the top of the ice core so that it becomes perfectly clear. The line scan records the visual stratigraphy, or layering, in the ice core. The ice core is photographed against a dark background using indirect light, which allows for clear and cloudy bands in the ice to be imaged. The cloudy bands contain more impurities, especially dust, than the clear bands of ice, and show up white while the clear bands show up as black against the background. The bands are indications of seasonal cycles, with dustier ice with higher impurities originating in summer months.

Lars sets up a core in the DEP.

The DEP (Dielectric Profile) is run by Lars from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany. The DEP is essentially two curved electrodes that are scraped down the top of the ice core (the cut that Atusushi made!) and record the conductivity and the permittivity of the ice which are sensitive to the acidity and the amount of sea salt in the ice. These, in turn, vary with the seasons, and so the DEP can be used to date the ice on a very fine scale.

Aslak runs the ECM.

The ECM (Electrical Conductivity Measurements) is run by Aslak, also from Denmark. The ECM consists of two electrodes, much like the DEP, which are drug down the ice core and record the electrical conductivity of the ice core. The electrical conductivity is sensitive, among other things, to peaks in acidity in the ice core due to volcanic eruptions. Where the electrodes record a peak in conductance is a layer where volcanic material has been deposited. Knowing when the volcano erupted helps then with dating the ice core. Together using the line scan, the DEP and the ECM together is a really powerful way of ensuring that the dating is done in the most accurate way possible…basically there are three independent measures of the annual and sub-annual layers in the ice.

Celebrating 500 m of cores processed in the CFA lab

The CFA (Continuous Flow Analysis) is run by 6 researchers in two shifts, and is really an amazing set up. The CFA essentially melts one section of the core (a “stick” or a rectangular section that has been cut out of the middle of the core by yet another army of science trenchers who man the saws), sucks the flow from the center of the melting ice, discards the waste water from the edges, and feeds the center flow to a series of analyzers which measure the melted ice core water for different chemicals. The concentration of people, instruments, and computers in the DFA lab is enough to produce a lot of heat, so the CFA has been housed in it’s own little insulated space to keep the rest of the science trench cold. The CFA lab reaches temperature of 30 deg C (around 85 deg F)! It’s a funny scene in there, with the 3 researchers in t-shirts while everyone else is bundled up in the science trench.

Physical Properties. Back in her own little room off of the science trench, Daphne of the LGGE in Grenoble, France, measures the size and the orientation of the crystals in the ice.

In addition to the different science stations, a bevy of other researchers works to cut and package the cores. When everyone is down there working together, it resembles an ice core ballet (just well-insulated and heavily clothed)! It really is amazing to watch.

Anaïs prepares sections of core to be shipped to various labs all over the world.

It is mind-boggling, I know, that there is unfrozen water that far below us, and under all that ice. The lakes are formed from heat from the earth being trapped and insulated by the several kilometers of ice and occur at the outflow of the Recovery Ice Stream, a large region of fast flowing ice.

One defining surface characteristic of the lakes is that they are flat, flat, flat, flat. There are no sastrugi [sharp frozen ridges and mounds in the snow], which we have become used to, or topography to speak of (not there was much before).

But while the landscape here is a bit monotonous, the snow here is really weird. Really weird. The top bit of snow is pretty new–some wind blown and some freshly fallen. It’s been snowing off and on while we were at camp, which is actually really rare for East Antarctica– we are in a polar desert after all. But the combined action of the wind packing the snow and changes induced by the ever-present cold temperatures and sun during the summer months have made for some of the hardest layers in the near surface I have ever encountered.

One layer, which Tom and I have been calling the MOAHL (or Mother of All Hard Layers), 1.2m deep in my pit, actually hurt my hands, shoulders and arms as I tried to dig into it with my shovel. It felt like I was trying to dig into pavement. Below the MOAHL, the snow is sugary and coarse and won’t stay together. This snow has frustrated nearly all our attempts to drill cores in it. We drill down, only to have the sugary stuff fall apart in the barrel. It’s been very exasperating– we’ve started and abandoned 10 different holes trying to get a core. I’ve started calling it Devil Snow.

Devil Snow crystals. Pretty to look at, but their rounded shapes make them not bond well to neighboring crystals, and hard to work with.

The Devil Snow is also hard to dig, falling apart on the shovel, raining down on your face and into your jacket—leaving you spitting out the coarse, sharp crystals and trying to scrape them out from your collar. It makes it hard to cut blocks out of it for the water melters, which we use for our drinking water as well. Devil Snow.

Despite the Devil Snow, we have managed to make some progress. I have dug another three pits, we have collected some shallow cores, and Lou collected one 90 m core and another 20 m core. We’ve installed a string of several temperature sensors for Ted Scambos’s graduate student Atsu in the deep hole. The temperature data is being sent via satellite to Atsu in Boulder at the University of Colorado, where he can monitor the data for changes. We already heard from him that he is receiving the data!

Lou with a monster piece of core from the Devil Snow area. The cores should be 1 m long to fit in the insulated core boxes we have, but Lou had problems getting the core out of the hole since the ice and snow is so soft. She had to keep drilling further to try to get something that she could grab onto.

Ted Scambos’s temperature string, powered with solar panels, beaming data back to Boulder.

Ted also installed a GPS station on the last of the lakes in order to track any changes in the level of the lake. This particular spot seemed to move up and down vertically in the last five years, as if there was a lake draining and refilling. Devil Snow or no Devil Snow, we are getting science done.

Speaking of Devil Snow, we’ve decided to start a heavy metal band called Monster Sastrugi, with the first single called Sastrugi Tongue. The other tracks on our album would be:
- Hot Raro (Raro is the New Zealand drink we have at every meal; it’s like Tang)
- Hand Core to the Transition Zone (this was Tom’s song from graduate school)
- Barrel Full of Chips (Ted thinks this song is too country-western)
- Do You Really Want to Drill Here?
- Devil Snow
- Little Cold Metal Parts
- Lost my Sprocket Wheel (luckily just once on this trip)
- Planetary Gears Rock
- Hot Differentials
- UFO Hunting in Antarctica

Of course we have, collectively, no musical talents, so there is no need to worry about the band ever producing any music– you can breathe a sigh of relief.

This brings me to another list we have been working on, the top 10 signs you’ve been on the Antarctic Plateau too long:
10. You are no longer fit for polite society.
9. Coffee consumption passes 5 cups for breakfast.
8. You expect things to go wrong.
7. -20 deg C is a “hot day.”
6. 3 meters doesn’t seem that far to dig.
5. Raro starts to taste good, and the colors are pretty.
4. When someone says they saw dragon-shaped sastrugi, someone else asks if they were Asian or fairy tale-type dragons (the answer was both).
3. You think that the piece of lint drifting across the snow is an insect, and that it would make a good pet.
2. The thought of a fresh apple makes you salivate.

And the number one sign that you’ve been on the Antarctic Plateau too long:
1. Everything is funny.

I am always on the move or shoveling, it seems. So far I have dug six 2 meter snow pits at various stops on the traverse. I dig the pits in order to get a close look at the surface snow and the layering caused by different weather and snow deposition events, and because these top 2 meters are fragile enough that the don’t always survive when shipped as cores back to the lab at home. The surface snow holds clues as to what is going on in the ice below. Some of the layering we see in surface pits is seen in deeper ice cores.

We can also get an idea of how much snow has fallen in a given area (thickness of the layers we see) and what processes (wind scours, snow fall) are going on at the surface. It’s a low-tech, labor-intensive way of getting a lot of information. Labor intensive because it involves digging a 2m deep by 1m wide by 2m long hole. I figure I’ve dug about 10 tons of snow so far, and made over 1000 different measurements of density, grain size, air permeability (ease of air flow in the snow), and thermal conductivity (ease of heat flow in the snow). These measurements give a physical basis for interpreting the climate record found in ice cores and the information that can be retrieved about the Antarctic plateau from radar and remote sensing signatures, which depend on, among other factors, grain size and density.

One of my snowpits.

So I’ve been doing a lot of digging on this trip. It is good because if anyone needs to find me I’m either in one of my pits or in the science tent, a nice Weatherhaven tent constructed on the back of one of the sleds that is a mobile snow laboratory, complete with light table for looking at the layering in cores, and all my other equipment, including speakers for my iPod. I hate to admit it, but it’s a nice, more comfortable set-up than the cold room (basically a walk-in freezer converted into a laboratory) I work in back at home. Most days, it is -15 deg C (5 deg F) to -20 deg C (-4 deg F) in the tent, which is unheated to preserve the snow samples I work on, and out of the wind and pretty nice.

In addition to the work I’ve done in the snow pits, I’ve been able to help out with some of the other projects going on around camp. I usually help Tom Neumann with the hand coring we have to do. At each site, we collect what we call Beta cores, which will be cut up, melted, and tested for beta radioactivity. The peak in radioactivity signals the height of atomic bomb testing in the 1960s. This radioactivity was transported through the atmosphere here to East Antarctica in 1963-1964 as snow fall. In this way, we can date the layers in the snow, since we know that the layer with the highest radioactivity is from that year. A bit unsettling perhaps, but very, very useful.

Some of my Arctic teammates hand coring in Greenland last season.

I also helped Dr. Ted Scambos from the National Ice and Snow Data set up a string of temperature sensors we dropped down the last 90m hole we drilled. The temperature at different depths gives an indication of past temperatures, and can be used to determine if this area of Antarctica is getting warmer or colder—this is important since there are no direct measurements of temperature over time here (since there is no one here to make the measurements!)

It’s fun to help out with the other projects, as it gives you a different perspective on what everyone is working on. I also have been logging the boreholes that Lou is drilling with a borehole optical stratigraphy (BOS) system, which is essentially a camera used to record the reflectance of the layers in the hole. I have also been driving the vehicles when we are on the move, usually Jack, which is pulling a load of food and the living module where we eat. This is usually a bit boring as our top speed these days is around 10 km/hr (6.2 mph), which allows for Kirsty to make good measurements using her deep radar system. Faster than that and she does not have as good of a signal. Other times though, like when we are going through a white out, where at times you lose all perspective of what is up or down or where you are, or when the sastrugi are large enough that they cause the whole train you are pulling behind you to lurch sickeningly behind you in the rear view mirrors, it’s a bit stressful. We drive in 6 hour shifts, which gets tiring as well.

The living module speeding along at 10 km/hr.

Jack is a bit difficult to drive. Kjetil, one of the mechanics who was at Camp Winter, where the vehicles were all fixed after last year’s problems, had explained to me that each vehicle is a bit different. The vehicles were all named after famous sled dogs, and the names seem to suit them, which is odd as well. I was skeptical until driving a couple different vehicles. I began by driving Chinook, which is relatively easy to drive. You want to drive in 5th gear, just speed up, put him in 5th, set the remote throttle knob on the dash so that you have about 1900 rpms, and down the ice cap you go.

Jack, on the other hand, is super touchy. It takes about 5-10 minutes of wrangling with the throttle knob to make him stay in 5th, sometimes even 4th. Moving the knob up or down even less than a millimeter sends him either bolting off at 13-15km/hr (way faster than we want to go), or zooming down through the lower gears if the rpms fall off. And then it takes even more finessing of the throttle knob to find Jack’s “sweet spot” where he’s keeping up with the others, but using as little gas a possible. This sweet spot of course is different from day to day as the surface conditions change, soft snow making it harder for him to pull his heavy load, and hard flat snow making him want to take off and pass everyone else. Even better, Jack changes speeds pretty drastically even with the remote throttle in the same position as the surface conditions change. As Svein says, “Jack is special.”

Svein has also encouraged me to try different things: monkeying with the throttle, driving in the tracks of vehicle in front of me, driving out of the tracks of the vehicles in front of me– which I guess makes the drive at least engaging if not relaxing at times. It’s a game to see which driver can get the lowest fuel consumption, as in, “I was getting 32 liters/hour, see if you can beat that.” Anything to make the time go by, I suppose. In a way, Jack reminds me of my dog at home, Baker. He’s stubborn, has a mind of his own, and is a bit crazy at times.

The driving-in-others’-tracks approach.

Besides driving and shoveling, the recreational activities I have managed are knitting (I knit Christmas ornaments for everyone on the traverse and yes, we had a tree—turkey, ham, gravy and stuffing too—we just celebrated on the 27th since that was a more convenient day for us) and skiing. A lot of the people on the traverse like to ski as recreation. It gives us some time to ourselves and away from camp where you can appreciate that you are in the middle of nowhere for a little bit, before scurrying back to the relative comforts of camp. I know that some have a goal of getting out to where they can’t see camp anymore, which no one has managed yet.

I had the full set of Arrested Development DVDs that I would watch at night in my bunk (not wanting to subject the rest of the group to American TV), but I’ve watched all the episodes now, and read the book I brought along, John Behrendt’s Innocents on the Ice, about his Antarctic traverse during the IGY in the 1960s.

It’s fun to think about the differences between our traverses. They definitely had a rougher set-up, while we ride in relative comfort. To be honest, we ride in relative comfort even in modern-day traverse standards, with a kitchen. They had a camping stove, shower (showers are pretty much unheard of in remote camps even today), a separate sleeping module (they slept in benches and sleeping bags in the vehicles) but got to see some fantastic, mountainous scenery, seeing some of the mountains for the first time. They were exploring totally unknown areas, with little warning if they were crossing crevassed areas unless they had a plane to do reconnaissance. We are covering places that haven’t been visited before, but have a pretty good idea of what we are getting into from satellite images, and have a great crevasse detector (Svein, our mountaineer, who operates a radar system that can detect them).

January 21, 2009
Weather: Partly cloudy, -25 C, wind 8 kts

RECOVERY LAKE ‘B’, ANTARCTICA– We are currently camped out in the Recovery Lakes region, and one of the main features of the snow surface is that it is flat, flat, flat. Hardly a sastrugi (wavelike ridge on the surface of hard snow) in sight larger than a few centimetres high. But there are still plenty of snow surface features to get excited about. Here at this camp spot, there are these neat patches of ripples dotting the landscape. Out on a ski this evening, I spotted multitudes of cups dug out of the snow surface as well. The features are created by the wind, which we’ve had plenty of the last couple of days, along with the return of colder temperatures. Summer is over on the Antarctic Plateau!

Ripples in the snow near our camp.

RECOVERY LAKE ‘B’, ANTARCTICA– It’s the snow, stupid! …that determines many factors for this traverse, that is.

For instance, the changing snow surface impacts our fuel consumption quite a bit. In softer snow, the four vehicles use much more fuel than when we are going over areas of hard snow. The characteristics of the snow determine how easily we are able to cut blocks out to put in our melters to make water. Sometimes, like in the last two camps, the snow is not very well sintered, or stuck together, and falls apart like shoveling sugar. Other times, we find thick, wind-packed snow that we can readily saw into nice blocks.

For the last few weeks, if anyone has wondered, “Where’s Zoe?,” the answer has been in one of my snow pits. I’m just finishing up my sixth 2-meter deep pit today. Each pit is about 1 m wide, 2 m long and 2 m deep. With an average density of about .38 grams per cubic centimeter, I’ve dug about 1520 kg worth of snow for every pit (that’s over 3000 pounds for the Yanks) – over 9 tons altogether. Not that I’m keeping track, but it is no wonder I’m so tired.

What’s neat is that each pit has its own surprise, and each has been different. It’s been fun seeing what sort of snow and layers I find in each of the pits. The layers help us determine what conditions have been like in the last few 10 to 20 years. Large grains usually mean low accumulation rates, as large grains grow over time as smaller grain sublimate and condense onto larger grains. Old sastrugi and wind crusts, as well as hoar (very large faceted grains from warm conditions and water vapor moving in the snow pack) are also buried. These all help us figure out the puzzle of the past climate in this region, which is tricky since unlike in areas where you get lots and lots of snow and can see the seasonal layering in pits, the area we are in gets very little snow, and any seasonal layering tends to get smeared out over time.

Layering in the top 80 cm of one of my pits, seen in a backlit pit, which is basically two pits with a 20 cm wall in between. The light from one pit left open shines into the second pit, which is covered. In this image, wind crusts (thin lines in the snow), old sastrugi (darker layers), and hoar crystals (very light layers) can be seen.

Since I was on a cruise for the duration of my last trip, I never had to cross one of the unifying stepping stones of everyone who works here, be them firemen or astronomers: I didn’t go to snow school. Snow School, or Happy Camper, is an overnight trip to the ice during which those new to Antarctica learn basic survival skills and come to appreciate some of the subtle differences between camping in the Midwest and camping on an ice sheet. My trip began December 2, with 17 other students in tow. The morning was spent listening to lectures but in the afternoon we walked out to the Happy Camper supply shed and began to set up camp. Right as we headed outside, it began to snow again!

Posing in front of Erebus Volcano on the way to Snow School.

After we had learned the basics of different shelters one can build on the ice, we were left to our own devices. During that time, our only responsibility was to cook dinner in our snow kitchen. Building in the snow, it is easier to build down than up. We began by expanding the kitchen so that there would be benches on either side of the preparation area. In the end, the area was able to accommodate at least 15 people at a time, allowing them to sit out of the wind and enjoy a hot beverage or some re-hydrated meals.

Eating our re-hydrated dinners in the kitchen we built by digging down into the snow. I slept in one of the Scott Tents in the background.

The food at our snow camp was not at all fresh or good! Amongst our rations for the evening we found a chocolate bar that was dated 13 years ago!

Amongst our food rations, we found a chocolate bar that expired 13 years ago. Here, Tim smiles before trying the chocolate. He was not smiling after.

Another group of creative individuals decided to build an arch out of snow. I helped in the beginning, popping the blocks of snow out of the quarry and also was there to assist in placing the keystone block which supports the weight of the arch, but much of the work was done while I was off cross country skiing for the first time in my life!

Happy Campers putting the finishing touches on our snow arch. At about 11pm the sun came out and smiled its approval on our construction.

When the time came, I chose to sleep in a Scott Tent, the design of which is over 100 years old. Having recently read about the early Antarctic explorers during my layover in Christchurch, I thought I would try-on a piece of their lifestyle. The tent has 4 poles that form a square base and meet at the top in a pyramid. Unlike modern tents, the base is not attached. It’s just a tarp you throw over the snow after the exterior has been propped up. We learned how to dig into the snow to make anchors for the tent that would neither rip it nor let it blow away. I can’t say I was particularly warm in the Scott tent, but I wasn’t any colder than the last time I went camping in Pennsylvania in April.

Even if I get to return to the Ice and become a Happy Camper once more, it will never be the same. The people I spent the night playing in the snow with are pretty amazing folks. And this experience alone was worth coming halfway around the world.

Now I’d like to introduce you to a ‘PolarTREC’ teacher who has been following along with them: Craig Beals is a high school teacher from Billings, Montana, working primarily with Barry Lefer’s group helping them to collect data.

This information helps the photochemists determine how much light is available to trigger chemical reactions in the snow.

Check back soon for more video on the tethered balloon project mentioned in this video.