An Antarctic Time Machine...

As I've alluded to in other posts and if you are unaware, Ross Island is rich with history.  Names like Ross and Shackleton are everywhere.  When expeditions began venturing further and further south some 150 years ago they determined at some point they would need to winter over through the harsh elements on the continent.  This island is effectively as far south as you can travel via ship if the sea ice is broken up enough.  

Here at McMurdo, is where one of these permanent structures lies,  preserved perfectly for the past 110 years in the dry, arid air this continent offers.  The sight is known as Discovery Hut, named after the Discovery, Scott's first expedition ship. The hut was built in 1902, and acted more like a storage or logistics hub and part time laboratory.  The party used the ship for their quarters.  Other huts on the Island (Cape Evans, etc) are larger and purpose built for sleeping.

  

Scott's Discovery Hut

As stated earlier, these huts were left as they were the day these parties went out on their often ill fated journeys.  Even on the outside, are stored tents, skis and seal carcasses (for food, lamp oil, etc).  The true museum is on the inside however.

A seal carcass draped atop a stack of mountain tents

The seaward facing side of the hut

Centennial plaque commemorating the historic site

The huts are historic sites. Locked up for their protection and preservation.  The entry is controlled by the National Science Foundation here and tours are extremely limited as the natural wear of foot traffic damages the wood floors inside.  I was lucky enough to get on one of the open tours this season yesterday.

Upon entry to the hut

 Once inside the threshold, I was instantly transported by 100 years. There's not much more I can say than look at what is inside.  Stacks of dry stores on the shelves, clothing hung up to dry on clothes lines, the smell of seal blubber permeated the wood around us.

 The site is being preserved  / conserved by Antarctic Heritage Trust which is painstakingly restoring and cleaning all the huts on the island for future study.  Follow that link or further details here.

So all in all a very amazing glimpse back in time, stepping on the same floorboards as Scott's Discovery Expedition, Shackleton's Nimrod expedition and Scott's failed Terra Nova Expedition was an experience to be remembered.

The view from above

When it's not too windy here, one of the most fantastic views of the surrounding area is from atop Observation Hill, or "Ob Hill" here at McMurdo.  It's about an 800' promontory next to town, which is an old volcanic cone off of neighboring Mount Erebus.

A view to the northeast of Mounts Erebus, Terra Nova and Terror

It's a good place to help clear the mind a bit, too.  Views for a hundred miles on these clear days are great. The sea ice runway is at the base of the hill as well so when flight ops are going on its nice place to take in the big picture of the logistics of how we work here.

Annual Sea Ice Runway (NZIR) at Mcmurdo (C-17, LC-130's in photo) 

"Green" Antarctica.  We've got wind, and lot's of it.  

A Bell 212 transiting through the tower airspace at the Sea Ice Runway

C-17 departing for Christchurch, New Zealand.

Atop Ob Hill is one of many memorial crosses spread across the continent.  This is "Scott's Cross" memorializing Sir Robert Falcon Scott's party that perished on their return from South Pole in March of 1912.  The parties names are inscribed in addition to a short quote from the Alfred Tennyson poem "Ulysses", which reads "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." Concisely summarizing the tragedy.

A Sunday full of sea spiders, seals, skis and spills

Sunday.  A day of rest.  The day off in town.  Folks try to enjoy themselves, let their hair down a bit, for some maybe wash their hair for the week.  This place can be a little granola and very green which is great but sometimes people need to introduce themselves to a bar of soap for the sake of the masses here. I digress...

Sunday, a day of rest....and exploring a little.  I went over to Crazy Laboratory for their weekly tour of what's going on in the wonderful world of science.  Its a huge 3 tiered lab set up for all the science teams to work in before, during and after their field work is complete.  It's a very impressive set up according to the folks working in there.  At a glance I'd have to agree.

Our tour guide, one of the lab supervisors

Smile! Who knew those cute little seals had chompers like this!

Meteorites--the continent is full of them.  Easy to spot too as big black rocks on white ice.

Sea urchin hanging out as part of an ocean acidifacation study

No sea urchins were harmed during the production of this blog... 

A starfish and his sea spider friend hamming it up for the camera

I think I ate 6-7 of his beer-battered cousins for dinner tonight

So after the Crary Lab tour I hiked out to Hut Point to check out some critters that poked up through a crack in the ice.  A couple of HUGE Weddell Seals that decided to come up and sun themselves for the afternoon.

These guys are probably 10 feet long each and probably 1000 lbs each.

Catching some rays on the sea ice of Mcmurdo Sound

One of the many memorial crosses of Ross Island

 After hiking out to the point and back, I decided to give cross country skiing a whirl.  Never did it before.  Big alpine skier.  Sure lets try something new.  We have free gear rental, 5,400,000 square miles of ice and snow.  Should be a good match!  My first mistake was delaying my decision to rent until late yesterday. Choice was limited.  My second was letting someone convince me to grab a pair of skate skis over traditional.  Apparently there is a large difference I learn after the fact and while traditional is not as exciting it is definitely EASIER than skating.  So I probably did about 3 miles total. I punted after a mile and half of frustration.  I told my friends to go on with their workout because they were waiting every 10 feet for me to get up off my butt.  It was fun but frustrating.  Now I am crazy sore.  I am hoping the traditional skis work out better for me.

Greetings from the Ross Ice Shelf!

Skiing past the ramp area of the Sea Ice runway (NZIR) at Mcmurdo along with  LC-130, Basler and Twin Otter aircraft

So at least the views out on the ice shelf are beautiful so I can take away something positive because I think I will be negatively reminded of my experience each time I sit this week!  I'm not too proud to take tips if anyone has any!  I hope everyone has a great week! This week flew--I hope they keep ticking away like this one.

What's a Pressure Ridge?

Shockingly there isn't much shopping down here.  That's a good thing.  However, there still are a couple places on the continent albeit limited.  Nearby is one of the locations outside of town here at Mcmurdo.  Our Kiwi neighbors at Scott Base are a short 3 mile hike away so up and down an icy hill we went in search of Christmas presents and a diet coke. 

Fortunately we walked because we didn't have any New Zealand dimes.

As you approach Scott Base one of the most amazing features right at their location is the sea ice / shelf ice confluence.  Where the two meet is a dramatic scene of the forces of Mother Nature at work with the formation of mangled ice and pressure ridges for miles. So just what is a pressure ridge?

Scott Base and the pressure ridges from a shot I took last season flying.  Mt Erebus in the background.

It's an ice formation typically found on large expanses of sea ice during the winter. In the most basic sense, a pressure ridge is a long crack in the ice that occurs because of repeated heating and cooling on the surface of the ice in addition to the tidal forces and flow of the ice shelf towards the sea.

Mangled Ice

Looking Back at Erebus

A handful of Weddell seals coming up for some sun through breathing holes created by the ridges

In cases of extreme cold, ice will shrink in volume like any other solid, opening up cracks in the surface that are completely frozen over. The cracks quickly fill with water and freeze again, but when the temperature rises later, the ice expands and forces itself upward along the lines of the crack, in much the same fashion that plate tectonics creates mountain ranges, albeit on a much smaller scale. 


That's today's lesson folks.  It was a success in it was a great 5-6 mile hike, I found a diet coke, got a great little Christmas ornament and saw some beautiful and twisted ice.  


Happy Veteran's Day to all my fellow brethren past and present.  Thank you for yours and your family's sacrifices.  Now back to my Saturday.  Cheers!

A Glance Under the Ice

Okay, so this was an awesome brief excursion I had no idea existed until this morning.  Each year, the divers (see previous post) set this up as a good deal for folks to check out.  It's called the "Ob Tube" or Observation Tube.  It is essentially a dive bell under 15 feet of Sea Ice suspended from above that allows anyone to crawl though the 18 inch wide hole for 15-20 feet and view some one of a kind views in this world--assuming you don't have to grease hips to get down and are not claustrophobic either.

I don't like to be redundant but this is a great video from Henry Kaiser and his dive team of the Ob Tube from the other side of the glass:

Looking up from under the water.

The windows once you crawl down are 360 degrees and you can stand up in the bell.  Surrounding you are millions of krill, tiny shrimp like critters that flourish in these sea life rich waters.  There weren't any large mammals about today but seals are all over the place usually.

The colors of blue are from another world.

More krill along the ice ceiling

My little friend looked surprised when I took his picture

Ice crystals growing on the outside of the glass.

Out Fishin'

Next to the tube was a dive hole / hut.  Inside we found one of the biology groups trying to collect samples, otherwise known as fishing.  It was a nice respite from out on the sea ice.  It was a balmy 75+ degrees inside.  Not too much luck at this hole, but at least they let me try anyways!  A cold beverage would have been nice,  but that will have to wait until later.

Climbing out of my hole! (Observation Hill is in the background)

Just a short note. Thought it would be neat to share. Enjoy!

Getting more smarter....

One nice thing to do in the "off time" down here is talk to folks and ask them what they do.  The variety of backgrounds in this melting pot puts New York City to shame.  One of the largest groups is obviously the science community.


On Wednesday and Sunday evenings these groups do their best to reach out to the non-50 pound brain types and attempt to explain just what they are doing with your tax dollars.  As in most fields, some people are better speakers, presenters than others.  Last night was one of the most interesting briefs I've seen yet.


Believe it or not, someone came up with the idea to go diving here.  "But it's frozen!" you say.  Yes, however we are on Ross Island and we are surrounded by ice on all sides.  It is where the polar ice shelf meets the Ross Sea ice.  Underneath the sea of white however is a thriving underwater world unlike ANY you have ever seen. There is still that whole, 15 feet of solid sea ice in the way.....

The dive teams go out with a variety of tools varying from hand augers, to 3 ton track vehicles with 4 foot wide drill bits to good old fashioned high explosive shaped charges to help motivate the ice out of the way.

First you start with a l-o-n-g drill bit....then add 25 feet of det cord...

Voila!  Dive hole!

So back to last night's science lecture!  Antarctica conjures up images of lots and lots of snow, ice, glaciers, penguins and very little to see, but one thing you would never imagine doing here is scuba diving

right? Well, think again! Even though the freezing temperatures that routinely plunge below -40°C (-40°F) and hurricane-force winds have created extreme conditions which have resulted in a land virtually devoid of life. No insects, no plants, no major terrestrial flora or fauna exist here. Yet, life thrives below the thick ice in the icy waters and McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea has some of the most spectacular diving in the World.

Curious Emperor Penguins checking out a dive hole

Most of the diving in McMurdo takes place during the summer months of September to February (especially December and January) where temperatures are a more bearable around 30°F (−1 °C). Divers break through the 1.3-3m (4-10ft) thick ice using boring tools like a diesel powered auger, ice saws, ice chippers and even high explosives to make a hole about 1.3 m (4ft) in diameter and a portable hut is placed over this. The hut placed over the hole is mostly to keep the hole from freezing over again and it also provides divers a warm place to suit up. With freezing temperatures and winds outside the portable hut exposed scuba equipment is at risk of becoming inoperable if not careful.

What are YOU doing here? Looking up at the ice ceiling and a Weddell Seal.

The water below the thick layers of ice remains a near constant temperature of -1.8° C (28.8° F) and once under, divers can experience an unbelievable visibility of 300m (990 ft)! Once a divers eyes adjust to the one percent of sunlight that makes it through the ice, they describe the experience as flying over a darkened landscape of hills, valleys and sheer cliffs and if one were to look up a spectacular glowing blue cover with a moon like crater that is the ice and hole, is their reward.

 One of the lead divers who's been doing this for 9 seasons now down here gave us a glimpse into the specific project he was supporting down here which centered around ocean acidification here in the Southern Ocean and it's impact on a couple of the more delicate little critters that reside here on the ocean floor.

The Ice shelf off of Mcmurdo station

Without getting to deep into the science he wowed the crowd with his cinematography from another world. His name is Henry Kaiser and originally came here 10 years ago with a dive background but was on an artisan grant from NSF as a film maker.  He asked to work with the dive locker and the rest has been history.  He puts a great spin on his work via unique perspectives and his own music that he writes (and played live on his guitar for us last night as well!).

A video he shot a few years ago was made into somewhat of an "Antarctic Classic" by Werner Herzog called "Encounters at the End of the World". It's a collection of great shots around the continent, but focuses on the ethereal images from under the ice, here's the trailer to the film:

Here's some video he shot this week about 1/2 mile from here in McMurdo Sound:



This is a video he shot and put together last week for the Long Beach Aquarium in California.  It is a neat 10 minute overview of life around here with some fantastic imagery and some odd-ball scientists.

These experiences are great to learn about what we are all supporting down here and they really help bring together groups of people from diverse backgrounds in one place to better know each other. As I find meet more and learn what they are doing (at least the interesting ones) I will be sure to pass them on.


For now...take care! Back to work!