See us installing a new GPS station in the video below. We previously assembled the tower, which contains solar panels and wind turbines, to charge the batteries. The batteries and the GPS hardware are in the gray cases. We use towers to keep the solar panels from being buried by accumulation and drifting snow. Note the old station in the foreground and how close it is to the snow surface. This video is played back at 15x speed.

We always have a handheld GPS on while we’re driving our snowmobiles, just in case we get lost or conditions change and we can’t see. This way we can know where we have gone and were safety lies. I compiled all of our GPS tracks and made this map.

This map our snowmobile tracks.

We have ten GPS station around the ice sheet, plus a few other locations of interest (seismic instrumentation or flag pole to re-measure) which we visited at least once each during our field season. I drove over 400 km during our 4 week field season.

Here we measure a flag pole to see how much it has moved since we measured it last (the year previous, in this case). Some times the flags were frozen into the ice and we couldn’t get them out. As a result we measure a location next to the flag and make careful notes about how far away our antenna is.

A snowmobile outfitted with a kinematic set up: simply a GPS antenna strapped to the side. We’re not moving in this picture, but are we record positions whenever we drive around.

We can use this kinematic set up to measure surface elevation and if we have multiple measurements, as in the image below, we can see changes in the ice surface topography.

In this image four kinematics GPS profiles are shown and the elevation differences between the two time periods are different. We can see that the surface of the glacier is changing rapidly. The reason for these changes are that highly pressurized water is creating a cavity below the glacier which floats the ice up. These cavities can also drain allowing the surface to deflate.

Part of the safety protocol is to have the field party pitch one tent before the plane can leave. This is in case something happens, weather or injury, there can be a haven out of the elements. In certain scenarios, it might just be the difference between life in death.

As you’ll see, we pitched our tent much too close to the plane and we were bowled over by the force of the propellers. Moments later the plane disappeared into a cloud of snow. Silence and we were alone.

The other science component of the project is to image the subglacial lake underneath Whillans Ice Stream. To do this, we set off a series of explosions, with instruments called geophones to measure the waves emanating from the explosions. Because the waves bounce off all the layers of the subsurface, we can then figure out how deep all the layers are and eventually produce a cross-sectional map of what lies beneath the surface! Have a look at this video of the explosions.

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.

Eight weeks before our departure date for this project we had to ensure that our instruments were in the hands of the US Antarctic Program logistical support crew in Port Hueneme, California. They would transport the 200 lb drill and the other bulky cargo to McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

This is the storage bin where a lot of our gear was gathered when we arrived. There were about 8 ‘cargo bins’ lined up in this building.

A little over nine weeks later, we now have to oversee that that cargo leaves McMurdo so that it’s with us when we leave here for our final destination. Not only the instruments but also our supplies – our kitchenware, tools, sleeping kits, etc – all have to be coordinated with the line of operations that support moving us to our exact field site. We must pack all of our equipment and send a report dictating the volume and weight of each box, case, or other oddly shaped piece of cargo. This way ‘they’ can determine how to pack the plane(s). ‘They’ are the people who I initially assumed would complete all this work automatically, before our arrival.

This is the scale we’d place (quickly reverting to drag) all of our boxes on – not your typical bathroom scale eh?

My understanding of the McMurdo juncture of our trip, was to walk in, take a few classes out of necessity (to check off satisfying a few rules of precaution), and be off again, weather permitting of course, to our field site where I would finally taste the ‘real Antarctica’.

But instead, I learned that there were lots of logistical things that had to be set in place, for which we had to start the balls rolling during the first couple hours after our arrival, and before the ‘crowds’ of other NSF science groups came in to get the best, soonest, appointment time. The appointments for all the training courses — how to ride a snowmobile, the basics of survival in Antarctica, crevasse rescuing, etc – have to be made and cannot conflict with each other.

And, we have to check all of our gear for holes and functionality. Afterall, these sleeping bags, tents, stoves, etc., are what we’ll depend upon for our survival at our field site. It would be wasteful and inefficient to call in a plane just to replace a stove that we can’t seem to turn on.

Some of the boxes we’d use were huge – about a five foot cube. This is one of them. If they were over 100 lbs – they moved around on a crate.

We’ve accumulated about 50 pieces of cargo, and that’s even before accounting for food. Each of those boxes is important in some way, so they all must be on the Hercules LC130 flight with us to Siple Dome, and then from there to our field site on the Whillans Ice Stream. Not one can get left behind because these flights are sparse and expensive to carry out.

I also learned that this – McMurdo – is the ‘real Antarctica’. Just because there are buildings, cars, 900 other people, electricity, Fox News, and kiwi fruit at meal times doesn’t mean that the weather won’t change in 20 minutes from calm winds and sunshine to big blankets of stratus clouds and gusts that immediately freeze your hands. Nor does it mean you can wear a single layer beneath the parka (the “big red”) that every USAP participant is issued. No, because just that run across the street from your dorm to the cafeteria can numb your face and your hands are always reflexing into a pocket if not covered by gloves an inch thick.

Me at McMurdo.

Due to the winds that can pick up on the ice, some parts of the audio are harder to hear than others. Please be patient and adjust the volume accordingly– you really get to understand how hard it can be to hear people when it gets windy out there!

Our camp near Whillan’s Ice Stream on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

camptour.wmv (Windows)

camptour.mp4 (Everything else)

(Please click on one of the above links for the video.)

Earlier in December, I sent an audio dispatch in the middle of a storm that delayed our work out on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I stuck my phone outside of the tent so you could hear the wind howling. Here are some of the pictures that accompany that audio– together you can get a bit of an impression of what being trapped in the storm was like. To listen to the audio dispatch again, click here.

The Storm begins.

Slawec prepares to brave the outside. Yes, he’s in there!

The interior of my sleep tent where I eventually took refuge — small, but very cozy. The wool blanket and foam pad serve as a carpet, and my sleeping bag is on the right.

Going to get water during the storm was a chore — winds were around 20-30 knots at this time, with higher gusts.

Doug and Slawek inside the kitchen/work tent during the storm. As we were unable to go do our field work, we spent the time huddled inside this tent together.

By the time the storm had ended, snow blown by the strong winds had nearly buried much of our gear. Here you can see the snow packed in around one of the sleeping tents. In the background, you can see the poles we used to mark objects in camp — a preparation made especially because of events just like this.

A lot of digging had to take place in order to uncover our newly-snow-buried equipment…

…a lot of digging. Here Rickard frees our sleds from the snow.

Journey to the Field: The Last Leg

The journey to our field site at Whillan’s Ice Stream on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was long, with many stops, the last of which was at Siple Dome. From there, it was a matter of getting our selves and equipment out to the ice sheet.

Some of the most important pieces of equipment were, of course, the skidoos — the only things enabling us to travel from camp to our various research sites. So how do you get a skidoo into and out of a small plane? As these pictures show, you drive and lift it, using a ramp, some muscle, and some finesse.

The lift…

The muscle…

And the finesse.

Of course, landing a plane on an ice sheet is an impressive feat by itself. The Basler plane (a DC-3) is the largest bush plane used by the United States Antarctic Program and can land without a runway.

This photo shows how much cargo a Basler plane can hold. Our group had enough cargo to fill three flights.

By the time the Basler returned with the second load of cargo, we had set up the sleep tents. We watched the plane circle once over our camp before landing.

The Basler created a flurry of blowing snow during takeoff, leaving us windblown and all alone in the flat white, with only our essential survival gear.