After dinner, the crew enjoyed some of
the local establishments to celebrate a good, if busy first day.
November 24th
Today
is Perfect Antarctic weather -
the sky is clear, the wind is calm and temperatures in the 30s.
Days like this bring out the real beauty of this stark continent.
The weather provided a perfect opportunity to get some real work done
on their Marine Sampling. After a
brief meeting with MacOps to learn about radio communications in the
McMurdo Sound area, the B-518 crew headed out to the sea ice on foot to
locate the nine dive sites using a GPS unit. Within forty minutes, the
crew had located six sampling locations. Five of the sampling locations
were flagged so they can be found later.
The sixth was occupied by an
Adelie Penguin! It is the first penguin of the season at McMurdo so was
quite a coup to see him. The crew spotted his tracks
and then sighted
the bird right on their dive spot!
After lunch, the crew went back out to the sea ice with the two divers
who are working them - Rob Robbins and Jack.
The three remaining holes were located and flagged and the Reed Drill
was brought in to drill the six dive holes that will enable the marine
sampling to be accomplished. While the Reed Drill makes easy work of
drilling though the sea ice, good old elbow grease is still required to
shovel ice away from the hole and to clean the remaining ice out of the
dive hole so it doesn't freeze close. The Reed Drill operator
deserves a lot of credit for his exacting work - it is well appreciated!
The exhilaration of working outside in McMurdo sound on days like this
are beyond description. Here is a QuicktimeVR
movie of the Royal Society Range from photos I took today. To view
the panoramic, you will need to have Apple's
Quicktime Player installed on your computer.
Most of the drill work was done using the Reed Drill which is shown in
action below
The left figure above illustrates the Reed Drill. You can also See Mt.
Erebus smoking in the background. The right picture above shows the
Reed Drill at work.
For those interested in seeing the Reed Drill in operation, there are
three movie clips showing the various stages of the process...These
movies can be viewed using Apple's
Quicktime Player or with a browser that recognizes this movie
format. These movies are quite large, between 3 and 12 MB so they may
take a long time to download over a slow internet connection.
This year after somewhere between 6 and 17 feet depending on the
location, the Reed Drill will pierce through the bottom of the sea ice
and bring up water as can be seen below.
Unfortunately, Manual labor is still
required to shovel the drilling shavings from around the whole so when
the water flows it can move away from the hole (left). Once the
drilling is done and the ice removed from the whole has been scraped,
it is still necessary to clean out remaining ice from the hole (right).
However, there still was time to enjoy
the wonderful weather...
Run Sally Run....
November 25th
Thanks to
Rob
Robbins and Jack Baldelli the B-518 crew had a very productive day
sampling the benthic sediments along a transect at the sewage outflow
(Transect D). In the morning Rob and Jack each made a dive to
sample the deepest site at 120 feet. In the afternoon, Jack had the
longest dive and sampled the shallow site at 40 feet depth, while Rob
sampled the intermediate 80 foot site.
Terry, Sally and Steve processed all the cores that the divers
collected, while Andrew served as the tomato lackey doing odd things
and helping a bit with dive tending.
November 26th
Thanks to
Rob Robbins and Jack Baldelli
the B-518 crew was able to repeat the success of yesterday and
completed there 3-hole transect in Winter Quarters Bay. Like the
previous day, in the morning
Rob and Jack each made a dive to sample the deepest site at 120 feet.
In the afternoon, Jack had the longest dive and sampled the shallow
site at 40 feet depth, while Rob sampled the intermediate 80 foot site.
Here is a short video clip of a
diver
leaving the surface in Winter Quarters Bay.
here is the dive hut (aka the Tomato)
in Winter Quarter's Bay
Sally and Steve processed all the cores that the divers
collected, while again Andrew served as the tomato lackey and tried to
improve his
hose coiling techniques.
In the afternoon, Emily Stone, a reporter from the
Antarctic Sun came
to the dive hut and interviewed the B-518 crew about their research.
November 27th
Today, MacTown (McMurdo) celebrates Thanksgiving giving the town a
well-deserved rare two-day weekend! However, before the B-518 crew
could celebrate Thanksgiving, along with Jack and Rob they sampled the
deepest hole on their control transect off of Cape Armitage.
Unfortunately, the bottom is covered with a sponge spicule mat and the
sampling is very difficult. Because the depth is 120 feet, the divers
do not have much time on the bottom to work. The divers were able to
collect most, but not all of the samples that were needed in a late
morning dive.
Once the diving was over, everyone returned to McMurdo to enjoy
Thanskgiving Dinner which was excellently prepared by the McMurdo
Chefs. Thanksgiving Dinner at McMurdo is a special event. To
accomodate everyone, there are three seatings (3, 5 and 7 pm - the
B-518 folks were at the 7pm seating, and each seating gets 1 1/2 hours
for dinner. People begin lining up well before the seating time
and then select an appropriate table before going through the
line. Apparently 1.5 tons of turkey were prepared.
The
B-518 group gave thanks and enjoyed their meal immensely.
as did everyone else....
\
After dinner, the crew went on their annual after Thanksgiving Dinner
hike to Hut Point. The weather on Thanksgiving day was georgeous.
A Thanksgiving Day Landscape
Sally
Applebaum at Vince's Cross
November 28th
The day after the big McMurdo thanksgiving day feast, the B-518 crew
along with Rob and Jack were out for another dive after a late
brunch. Rob Robbins did the final dive at the deep hole on our
control transect at Cape Armitage. As with the other dives during the
Thanksgiving Day break, several McMurdoites joined the crew in the dive
tomato to watch the dive. Things were a bit cramped in the tomato.
In the afternoon, B-518 crew took advantage of the fact that heliopters
were not flying during the holidays to collect soil samples on the
heliocopter pad without disturbing operations. The crew spent a hour or
so twiddled their thumbs waiting for Andrew to determine the random
sampling sites and load the locations into the GPS. After Andrew was
through, the crew quickly collected 32 soil samples in less than an
hour.
Sally Applebaum working on the
helicopter pad
The highlight of the day, however, was the Sunday Science
Lecture. In what is probably one if not the largest single
gathering of people at McMurdo Station every, people crowded into the
dining hall to hear a lecture by SIR EDMUND HILLARY who at age 85 was
making a trip to see the New Zealand Base on Pram Point about two miles
from McMurdo which he helped establish. To hear Sir Edmund talk, in
Antarctica of all places, was a experince of a lifetime.
Being a Kiwi (New Zealander), Terry was allowed to go to a special
event at Scott base....
and was allowed to sit next to some
very distinguished company.
November
29th
Today was our last day of marine sampling! Rob Robbins did two dives to
take care of the intermediate and shallow sites on our control
transect. Rob did an excellent job and retrieved wonderful cores
under difficult circumstances.
In case you were wondering...a large part of a dive day is spent
waiting in the dive hut waiting for the divers to surface with the
cores. The waiting is punctuated by brief periods of intense activity
as the divers prepare to dive and surface and as the team processes the
returned sediment cores and animals returned to the surface.
Rob Robbins returns from a dive...
Sally Applebaum models a large
sediment core returned by the divers
Sally Applebaum and Steve Sweet sample the sediment core
To celebrate the conclusion of the marine sampling, Terry and Andrew -
along with another McMurdoite Josh - did a polar plunge on the last
dive hole. Both felt the water was quite nice, and Terry even did a
double dip. Steve and Sally couldn't be convinced to do the
plunge however.
Terry Palmer does the polar plunge!
Ah...that was nice!
It is hard to beleive that we have only been in McMurdo for a week - we
accomplished a lot and remain well ahead of schedule.
so Terry
what did you think of the water???
November
30th
The Team took a little down day and spent the day working in the lab.
Sally and Terry performed Microtox Analysis. Microtox is an analysis
that measures the toxicity of the sediment by using deep sea
bioluminescent bacteria (
Vibrio
fisheri). The more toxic the sediment the less light the
bacteria produces. The Microtox instrument has a light meter that can
detect small changes in the amount of light produced, therein measuring
how toxic the sediment sample is.
PICTURES OF LAB WORK SOON.
Andrew spent the time preparing the
terrestrial
sampling plan using a
Geographic Information System (GIS). The team will sample approximately
69 samples randomly located across the station. The team will also
intensively sample seven 25-m hexagons across the station that have
been located in areas of known contamination from fuels. In each
of these seven hexagons the team will collect 16 samples at random
locations. The team already collected two of these intensive sampling
grids on the heliocopter pad on Sunday in order to avoid helicopter
traffic.
December
1st
Today the
terrestrial sampling began in
earnest...walking around McMurdo and collecting surface sediment
samples in very warm and wondeful weather. The team started the
terrestrial sampling off easy collecting samples in McMurdo station
itself. The crew even managed to enjoy themselves a bit.
Sally Applebaum takes a breather from
sampling
A New Zealand Whale Rider
In the evening Sally, Andrew and Steve collected one intensive grid
located on part of the site formerly occupied by the MEC, which served
as a vehicle repair shop from many years in McMurdo's history. The
building was dismantled in the last summer season. Terry Palmer
was apparently playing rugby somewhere....
After sampling, Sally and Steve played Bingo in Gallagher's and Sally
won a Spa at the Heritage Hotel in Christchurch - which is where she
likes to stay. Andrew was apparently in the Coffee House and then
went for a sauna- nothing new there.
December
2nd
The terrestrial sampling continued with an early start as the B-518
crew as accompanied to the explosives storage area at 7:30 to collect a
single sample. The crew was able to use a truck today so they
spent a day climbing up and downs the slopes around McMurdo visting the
T-site, Observation Hill and Fortress Rocks. Fortress rocks
was a landfill site which has been cleaned up and is now used as a
staging area for material going back to the states. It also is
used as storage of fuel contaiminated soils in lined berms
Food waste (left) and sewage sludge
(right) awaiting transport back to the states for disposal.
Sally and Terry raise the Islanders flag!
In the evening they treated Rob and Jack at Gallagher's.
The night was georgeous as well and by 11 pm, the sun was over Mt.
Discovery and streaming into the crew's lab. This year, like
last, the crew are Phase 3 Beakers, occupying lab 304.
A view from Crary 304
December
3rd
The team continued their terrestrial sampling on a georgeous
friday morning. The sun was up, the wind was down and the B-518
crew climbed up some very steep slopes and had wonderful views of Mt.
Erebus and the Royal Society Range. Of course, Andrew forget the
memory card to his camera. Steve took some wonderful pictures
though.
The crew worked hard scrambling up and down slopes all morning...then
on the last of the stationwide random sampling sites, the GPS gave
out. Using a map the crew found the approximate location of the
site, which Andrew will have to GPS later. In the afternoon, the
crew did some labwork and headed out after dinner to collect intensive
samples around the heavy machine shop and refueling station so they
will not interfere with station operations during the day.
Mt. Erebus from Arrival Heights
Across the road from the Radar dome,
Andrew came across the scraped remant of a "sand-wedge polygon" which
is a periglacial feature that was common around McMurdo Station before
human disruption. Note the light-colored sand.
Andrew Standing next to a sand-wedge polygon
The appearance of McMurdo Station continues to improve. Last season the
three fuel tanks high above Winter Quarter's Bay were removed, making
for a much nicer view. Tommorrow, the B-518 crew intends to
sample where the middle of the three tanks used to be.
December
4th
This morning, the B-518 finished its two last intensive sampling sits
on the station. One was the site of a former fuel tank which was
removed in the past year and the other was on the eastern side of the
heavy shop which was too frozen to easily sample the night
before. After a quick hour's work, the crew was done by 10:30 AM
in time for Sally to go to her recreational training so she can leave
the station this week for pleasure jaunts. The rest of the crew did
their recreational training on Tuesday when Sally was at Scott Base.
A new piece of art at McMurdo - the
skier at the site of former fuel tanks
The weather today has been very nice and quite cooperative during the
crew's time on the ice. Today's highs reached 39 F!
The cross on Ob Hill with Mt. Erebus
in the background
After a quick trip to Scott base...
Pressure
Ridges at Scott Base
The crew spent the afternoon working in the lab and then after dinner
Sally and Terry went cross-country skiing, Andrew Climbed Ob Hill and
Steve, ever the workaholic was in the office working.
Steve Sweet hard at work after hours
After a hike up Observation Hill, Andrew snapped this
panaramic
view of the station.
At the end of a hard day's work the crew
met up at the Coffee House and then headed to Gallagher's for some
R&R.
December
5th
The B-518 crew rested....McMurdo has quite a few diversions...
bowling...
Rugby...
Visiting Historical Sites...
The weather has been very warm and water
is everywhere.....
Water running...
here is a short Quicktime Video of the
water flowing...
Our Winter Quarters Bay sampling sites are flooded..
December 6th
Well our sampling around McMurdo Station
is almost done....we have exactly 16 samples to collect in Arrival
Heights at an on-station control site, and what a wonderful day to
collect them high above McMurdo. The sky is clear, the
temperature is warm, the wind is calm, the sites are all in a single 25
m hexagon grid....and on a flat site. Wonderful place to sample
high above the NASA golfball (Radarsat Dome)....
B-518's big day of this field season...a trip to Cape Bird to collect a
set of off-site control samples. Cape Bird was selected to be
relatively unspoiled yet not so completely desolate that the team would
affect pristine ground with their sampling. Being first time
flyers this season we arrived at the PAX terminal well before hand
decked out in our full ECW gear as required and were given a through
safety breifing.
All the crew donned the white helments....
Then we were off to a the Bell 212 Helicopter 36J for a quick trip up
to Cape Bird....and off they were off...
Crary Lab from the Heliocopter...our
lab this year was in phase three (the lower part)
We had some beautiful views on the way
out.
December
8th
Final work and preparations are underway....while the sampling is over
there are numerous things left to do. Sally and Terry have to
finish some Microtoxing, Steve continues his relentless pursuit of
complining information in an Excel srpeadsheet for his Casco Bay,
Maine, project and Andrew headed up to the Telesciences part of Crary
to grade graduate student papers.
Andrew and Steve also spent time repacking the samples that will be
heading back to A&M. This is cold work as all the samples are
stored in the -20 C cooler....but you know Antarctica is a cold place
:) After repacking and weighing, Steve and Andrew headed up to
Science Cargo to give the support staff the information to ship back
the samples correctly. Andrew also returned the huge (not) amount
of equipment borrowed from the BFC. The crew also very carefully
returned science equipment to the ever helpful Crary Staff.
December
9th
Final preparations for leaving continue...and other work continues as
well. Andrew continued to grade student reports and Steve
continued his Casco Bay work. Once Steve finally! finished his
Casco Bay Spreadsheet, Andrew and Steve worked hard to bring all the
information into a Geographic Information System (GIS). After some work
making a correct basemap and the usual importation problems, Steve was
able to begin making maps using GIS for the first time. It was a useful
excercise for both. Andrew had the chance to begin working extensively
with the newest release of ArcGIS, which presented some interesting
challenges, while Steve got a chance to learn a little GIS.
Within no
time, Steve was able to create
graded-circle maps and even some pie charts. Either Andrew is a great
teacher or Steve is a fast learner, but it was impressive to see.
Meanwhile, Sally and Terry were much smarter and chose today to see
parts of McMurdo and take some nice pictures....
Sally with the Crary Christmas Tree and
the Grinch...
Terry and a MattTrack...our on ice
vehicle
And just in case you were wondering
what accomodations were like...
A pretty typical dorm 203A room, but occupied by Terry
Many people here for the entire season or winter go to
great efforts to make their rooms cool and interesting and more "homey"
In the Evening people enjoyed themselves as well....Andrew saw
off some old and new friends as they prepared to leave the ice
Mike Willis enjoys his last hours at
McMurdo
December
10th
The B-518 crew's last full day in McMurdo during this very short field
season. Attempting to be good Beekers and leave a clean lab to
the next group, final cleanup in Crary continued as the last of the
items were taken to the storeroom and the lab was throughly cleaned.
Final postcards were mailed and final work was done....And goodbyes to
new and old friends all around
The NASA guys, Alex and Nick.
The cryospheric community to owes a tremendous amout to Alex, Nick and
their collegues as their tireless work at the McMurdo recieving station
as enable tremendous amounts of satellite imagery to be
collected. Hats off to you guys!
Hats off also to...
Mike Ebel
whose tireless efforts at making Crary function do not receive the
credit they should
To the folks in Black Ops (and Unavco)
Who do their best to keep Beekers in touch with the real work and now
where they are on the ground
(which is a nearly impossible job)
And to all the other Crary Staff of whom Andrew forgot to take
pictures....
Thanks also to the efforts of Sally and
the kindness of
David Breshnehan, the B-518 crew was also able to vistit the inside of
the historic Discovery Hut -- the continent's 2nd oldest Extant
Structure.
The hut has been preserved and an attempt made to portray how things
might have looked when the hut was in use. While the Discovery Hut was
erected during Scott's First Expedition, it was used by later
expeditions working in the same area and there is some currently some
discussion of what expedition the hut should be rearrange to
represent...
Just a few interesting photographs...
Sally and Terry at the Glacier
Front
and then the weather was so warm
they settled down for a nice nap in their big red Parkas...the solitude
of the beautiful place only interrupted by an occasional snore from an
unnamed member of the crew...
