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!

The weather in Christchurch was beautiful, with sunny skies and warm temperatures with highs in the lower 60s F. This was a bit of a surprise since August is still winter in New Zealand. The explanation for the nice weather is that Christchurch was experiencing a weather phenomenon known as a norwester, which is characterized by strong, warm northwesterly winds. This is similar to the warm Chinook winds we get in Colorado or the warm foehn winds of the European Alps. Regardless of the source of the nice weather I took advantage of it by strolling around Christchurch and walking through the city’s beautiful botanic gardens.

Trees in the Christchurch botanic gardens. Green plants are something I won’t see again until I return to New Zealand in early October.

I also went up to the Port Hills, the remnants of volcanic activity in this region, which provided a beautiful vantage point to watch the sunset over Christchurch, the Canterbury plains, and the Southern Alps.

Sunset over Christchurch, the Canterbury plains, and the Southern Alps from the Port Hills just outside of Christchurch.

Of course, my time in Christchurch wasn’t all play – I also went to the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) clothing distribution center (CDC) to get my extreme cold weather (ECW) gear for the trip south. USAP participants are given all of the cold weather gear they’ll need to stay warm and safe while in Antarctica. When trying this gear on in a more temperate location like Christchurch it is easy to think that it is overkill, but I certainly appreciated it when I stepped off of the plane in Antarctica to a temperature of -45 F (although I’m getting slightly ahead of myself).

The flight to Antarctica needs to be timed to coincide with the relatively short daylight hours at this time of year, and so needs to land around noon. This means leaving Christchurch around 7AM, which requires a middle of the night wake-up to get to the CDC, conveniently located next to the Christchurch airport, to get into our cold weather gear and check in for the flight. On the day that we flew to Antarctica (Wednesday 26 August) I got up at 2:30 AM to catch the shuttle to the airport. By 4:30AM I’d changed into my cold weather gear, which included insulated socks and giant white bunny boots, long underwear, pants, and an outer pair of windproof pants, a long underwear top, a fleece jacket, and a giant red parka, glove liners and gloves, a balaclava, fleece hat, and goggles. We boarded the plane, a US Air Force reserve C17 around 6AM and were in the air heading south just before 7AM.

Me on the C17 waiting for take-off from Christchurch. I’ve taken off some of my cold weather gear off for the flight.

There is no mistaking this plane for a commercial aircraft, as the inside looks like the inside of a giant warehouse. A pallet of airline seats is loaded in the cargo area, that provides seating for about half of the passengers, with the remaining passengers sitting on nylon webbing seats that fold down from the walls of the airplane. The airline seats have the advantage of being more comfortable, but with less legroom, while the seats along the walls of the plane are less comfortable, but provide lots of legroom. Given all of the padding from our clothes, I find the less comfortable seats with more legroom to be preferable.

Video 1. A view of the inside of the C17 during the flight down to Antarctica. The engine noise you hear on the video is loud enough that it makes talking with other passengers difficult and requires that you use ear plugs for most of the flight.

The flight from Christchurch to the Pegasus ice runway in Antarctica takes about 5 hours. On our final approach the pilot announced that the current weather at Pegasus was -45 F. I’m a bit of a cold weather junky, so hearing this got me excited, as this is the coldest temperature I’ve ever experienced. With temperatures like this it is nice to have all of the ECW gear that seemed like overkill when in Christchurch.

One of the passengers on the flight just before getting off of the plane in Antarctica.

C17 at Pegasus ice runway.

Newly arrived USAP participants waiting to be driven from the Pegasus ice runway to McMurdo Station.

Even though this is my 9th trip to Antarctica it was my first trip that wasn’t during the height of the Antarctic summer (December and January) and I was excited to experience late Antarctic winter, with cold temperatures, strong winds, and dark (during the summer the sun is up 24 hours, so despite having spent many months in the Antarctic previously this was the first time I’d see the sun set and have a dark night). The low sun angle when we got off of the plane cast the familiar landscape of Ross Island, Black and White Islands, and the Transantarctic Mountains in a new light for me.

Ross Island from Pegasus ice runway. This photo was taken near noon, yet the sun was low in the sky.

After arriving in McMurdo we went to the mandatory in-brief that gets all new arrivals up to speed on the basics of life in McMurdo. After that we were assigned dorm rooms and picked up our luggage from the flight. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting settled into our lab space in the Crary lab.

By dinnertime it was already dark out, with a glow of orange along the northwest horizon. By the time dinner ended it was completely dark out, and I saw the stars from Antarctica for the first time.

Our first full day in McMurdo (Thursday 27 August) was spent at more meetings and training sessions, as well as getting our lab space setup and all of our gear unpacked. This will continue for the next few days. While we are getting all of our gear setup the last flights to Antarctica, until the end of September, are scheduled to arrive. Once the last flight arrives we will begin setting up our unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launch facilities at the Pegasus ice runway. We’re hoping to make our first UAV flight sometime early next week.

Getting on the LC-130.

In addition to carrying people back and forth these planes also carry equipment, food and fuel for the South Pole Station (and waste the other way). Over 200 LC-130 flights are made to the pole each year, and a plane will typically have approximately 2,000 pounds of fuel syphoned off from it after it lands – this is what the South Pole generators run on, and they need several hundred thousand pounds of fuel to make it through the winter.

A 15,000 lb IceCube surface-to-DOM cable aboard our LC-130.

Flying with me was a 15,000 lb IceCube Surface-to-DOM cable. We need one of these for each of our deployments/strings (we are hoping to do at least 14 deployments this season). IceCube is a pretty massive project, and requires many cargo flights of fuel and equipment in order to succeed.

During the flight to the pole over the Transantarctic Mountains, I saw some really neat cloud formations. They are called “altocumulus standing lenticular clouds.” I was told that they are fairly common in mountainous areas. I thought they were pretty spectacular!

Altocumulus standing lenticular clouds over the Transantarctic Mountains.

Altocumulus standing lenticular clouds often form on the lee side of mountain ranges as moisture condenses at the crest of a standing wave in air currents.

A little later in the flight, I took this short video of the Beardmore glacier, flowing through the snow covered mountains. The glacier was discovered by Ernest Shackleton in 1908 during his failed attempt to reach the pole. The mountains on either side of the Beardmore contain a treasure-trove of dinosaur fossils and was one of the earlier study sites for paleoecologist Allan Ashworth who uncovered fossils in ancient lake sediments there.

Dr. Pekar as the helicopter landed at the Offshore New Harbor field camp.

The excitement built when a distant dull hum steadily became a louder roar as the helicopter approached and finally landed at our camp. Eight of us strapped ourselves in for a most memorable ride.

Flying in the helo.

I had only been in a helicopter once before and I couldn’t wait to see the view unfold before my eyes. We were going to be flying over New Harbor, a sight we had seen from afar every day since we had arrived at our field camp. But this time, it would be different. Once over New Harbor, we would fly through the Ferrar Valley, over the Ferrar Glacier and eventually to the Friis Hills field camp to visit with Dr. Allan Ashworth and Dr. Adam Lewis who were looking at 20 million-year-old glacial lake sediments for fossilized plant leaves to better understand Antarctica’s role during that relatively warmer time period of Earth history.

Looking up Ferrar Valley, flying over New Harbor.

Shortly after take-off we were already getting a much closer view of New Harbor and the Ferrar Glacier as we quickly approached Ferrar Valley. As we sped past glaciers seemingly falling off the sides of mountain tops, the vastness of the Transantarctic Mountains opened up. We were in the Dry Valleys.

The banded mountains of the Dry Valleys.

The mountains were huge and banded with different colors, each color a different rock type. As we soared higher and flew deeper into the mountains, the enormity of Antarctica showed itself.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The largest continental mass of ice on Earth, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, could now be seen. We were only seeing a very small portion of it, but it extended as far as the eye could see beyond the mountain tops. This is the source of the ice producing the glaciers that we could see all around us.

Friis Hills field camp as the helicopter touched down.

The helicopter landed at the Friis Hills field camp, and the first thing I noticed was how the Dry Valleys got its name. It was dusty and gritty, very different than what I was used to out on the sea ice. The rotor blades of the helicopter blew sand and gravel into the air. Sand and stone were everywhere. But it hasn’t always been that way. We were meeting Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis. They had agreed to take us on a tour of their research site and explain to us what they were studying.

Walking through a former glacial lake.

Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis explained to us that in the past glaciers cut through the surrounding hill tops, and that 20 million years ago it was a relatively warmer time in Earth’s history. And because it was warmer, some of the ice from the glaciers melted to form lakes. By studying how these glacial lakes formed and what kinds of vegetation were in these hills of the Dry Valleys, Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis hope to better understand how Antarctica responded to this warmth.

The most exciting part of their tour was to see the 20 million-year-old leaf fossil impressions that they had dug up at their research site. The leaves themselves are gone, but what is left is the impression that these leaves made in the lake-bottom mud. The leaves of bushes bordering this lake were blown into the water when they fell off the branches. They then sank into the mud on the bottom of the lake. Shortly afterward more mud accumulated on top of the leaves. The leaf material then disintegrated but a mark was fossilized in the rock where the leaves once laid.

20 million-year-old leaf fossil impressions.

We made our way back to our camp. This was the last time that the entire team would be together out on the sea ice. Andrea, Shakira, Joanna, and I were flying back to McMurdo Station on the helicopter that had taken us around during the day. We had a few minutes to gather our belongings, load up the helicopter, and have a group photo taken, by the helo pilot no less (thanks Paul!).

The Offshore New Harbor Team.

I had mixed emotions as the helicopter took off. I could see how tiny our existence on the ice was as camp soon became a little speck on the horizon behind us. The only way to notice it as we got further and further away was by following all of our tracks on the ice surface that we had traveled to get out to the transect lines where we were collecting data. All paths lead back to camp. We were 17 people in the vastness of Antarctica. 17 people working together to accomplish a common goal. We were successful against early setbacks and I was proud of what we had done as a team. The data that we collected will be used to identify a drilling location to obtain sediments to study our past climate in order to better understand our future changing world. And I was a part of it all. I felt extremely lucky to have been selected to join the Offshore New Harbor Expedition and very honored to have shared that place with every other member of the team.

Offshore New Harbor Field Camp from the air.

This new path with no track in the snow was not going to take me back to camp. I was beginning the long journey home. Back to McMurdo Station, fly to New Zealand, and then make my way back to New York. I am going to miss the Offshore New Harbor Team and the many good friends I’ve made at McMurdo. But thoughts of family and friends I haven’t seen in many months flooded my mind. I have missed them immensely. I am ready to leave. I am ready to return home. My work here is done, for now.

McMurdo Station from the air.

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.

My first look at Antarctica from the window of a USAF C-17 jet.

This season a small contingent of researchers from multiple universities will be working to install and maintain very high precision global positioning systems and seismometers. It is our goal within POLENET to cover a large portion of the continent with these sensors to begin to understand the science of interaction between the great ice sheets and the earth below. This understanding is vital to understand the historical relationship of the ice and the rock in the past as a window of what to expect in the future.

GPS and a seismometer installed by POLENET in Antarctica.

This season we will be working mainly out of McMurdo Station using helicopters and Twin Otters, a propeller driven fixed wing aircraft, to go install new equipment, as well as service and upgrade equipment that we installed last year. One very exciting portion of this season will be working out remote tent camp far south in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

Just arrived after landing at Pegasus Field on the ice shelf.

The USAF C-17.

The title of this story is “It takes a lot to get here.” In a sense, that can be said about the many commercial flights from Ohio to Christchurch, New Zealand (the ingress point for all personnel going to Antarctica), to the US Air Force C-17 jet that flew me down to the ice, and all of the support running the facilities here at McMurdo Station. But I guess I meant the title to reflect a much larger statement.

The amount of planning for a project this size has taken years to get us even to this point in the story. Of course, it first began with the idea that Antarctica has so many unknowns that it would take observations on a massive scale to begin to break the secret of the earth that lies beneath miles of ice. This project from concept, to funding, to implementation of each field season has taken the dedication and ingenuity of many scientist and engineers all across the world.

I will look forward to bringing you this.

At first glance, Antarctica seems to turn a cold shoulder to geologists. How do you study minerals and landforms on a continent that’s almost entirely covered by ice? But dauntless geologists are using a full range of tricks to peer under the ice . . . and what they’re finding is a big surprise.

A Twin Otter aircraft casts its shadow as it emits ice-penetrating radar waves. These waves reflect off the bedrock back to the aircraft revealing information about the geology beneath the ice.

A map of the mountains beneath the ice.

Take the apparently flattish slab of ice that is east Antarctica. Hiding beneath is a mountain range to rival the Himalayas, a range known as the Gamburtsev Mountains. These mountains are completely buried by ice, but their presence was first signaled by telltale wobbles in the strength of gravity measured from above.

What’s most surprising about this hidden mountain range is that, by all rights, it shouldn’t be there. East Antarctica is understood to be an ancient continental shield, a stable, unchanging plateau at the center of a tectonic plate, far from the mountain-building phenonena—such as volcanoes and plate collisions—that occur at plate boundaries. The presence of a mountain range in the middle of a continental shield like east Antarctica is, geologically, astounding. Says geologist Robin Bell, “It’s almost as if an archeologist in Egypt opened up a tomb and found an astronaut inside.”

Bell hopes to solve the mystery of the Gamburtsev range using data from roughly 200 flyovers, including radar signals (which penetrate through ice to create an image of the land surface beneath), magnetic measurements, gravity measurements, and laser sounding of the surface ice. This massive data collection effort, called the GAMBIT project, should yield the clues necessary for Bell and other Antarctic geologists to figure out when—and how—the Gamburtsev Mountains formed.

Sediment coring is another method scientists use to study the geology of Antarctica. Analyzing cores like these—from the ANDRILL project on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—helps scientists understand Antarctica’s past climate and geologic history.

POLENET researchers have to find exposed rock to place their high-precision GPS units. The units are powered by solar panels during the summer and wind generators and batteries during the polar darkness.

Western Antarctica—younger and more geologically active than its eastern counterpart—holds its own share of mysteries. One stands out in literal stark relief: the Transantarctic Mountains. This craggy rock spine erupts from the ice in a line that marks the boundary between east and west Antarctica. The range seems to be associated with a period of rifting—stretching of the earth’s crust—that began in west Antarctica 180 million years ago, and may or may not be ongoing. Data from the POLENET project, mainly from seismic and GPS sensors drilled into coastal bedrock, will help establish whether rifting continues in west Antarctica. “I’m sure that when we get these instruments in place, there are going to be a lot of surprises,” says POLENET geologist Terry Wilson.

Already, GPS data have confirmed that Antarctica is rising (geologists say “rebounding”) from the loss of ice during the last ice age, which ended 12,000 years ago. The land itself is rising just a few millimeters a year. This may seem slight but it’s still enough to significantly impact calculations of the changing thickness of ice sheets. Scientists the world over are watching the Antarctic and Greeland ice sheets with keen interest, because as they melt in response to global warming, global sea level will rise, wiping out coastal communities.

The fate of the ice sheets may rest, literally, on what’s underneath them. Research by Slawek Tulaczyk and others suggests that the motion of ice sheets depends on interactions between the ice and the rock below. Lakes of melted water under the glaciers may reduce friction and cause ice sheets to flow faster to the sea. Meanwhile, the breakup of ice shelves around Antarctica means fewer buttresses to hold back ice sheets from advancing rapidly into the sea.

The Transantarctic Mountains.

The ANDRILL drill site.

Me stopping for a photo op on the road to ANDRILL.

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