LIFE in the EXTREME

A Final Farewell.

2008-04-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is my final farewell to all the bloggers who have enjoyed my stories about Antarctica. I was on the seventh continent for three and a half months of the year. I watched the seasons change from summer (24 hour sunlight) to winter (9 hours of sun and dropping when I left). It was an amazing experience and one that I will not soon forget. Thank you for your comments and interest in my trip.

Here are some photos (roughly in order) of the highlights of the trip.
Cheers and peace.
Please remember some of the stories I have shared, remember how these animals and their delicate ecosystem are continually changing, and please do your best to have a positive impact on the globe.
Anna Rizzi Bramucci

2008-04-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

Fun at 30 below!

2008-04-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a fun thing to do if you are ever in weather that rivals Antarctica.

We got boiling water and then went outside in to -34 C temperature and threw the water into the air.

The air of the valleys was so cold and dry that the water evaporated on the spot, and some particles fell to the ground as ice... Watch the movie of our fun, I am the one throwing up the water.

2008-04-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

The best way to really see an Aurora is by using a timelaps video function. This is where the camera takes an image every couple of seconds and then stiches them together in a movie format. Here is a great timelaps video showing how the moon never sets as it circles around Observation Hill in McMurdo. It also shows the wonder of the Southern Lights!

Aurora Australialis

2008-04-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

Polar Night

2008-03-31T14:34:00.001-07:00

Interesting Hypotheses:

2008-03-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hypothesis 1: The pictures are FAKE.

I think this is a great hypothesis. Several people have said they look fake, and I myself first thought the images were from a spam e-mail. However, after asking around in Antarctica and doing some research on the internet I have found that the pictures are not fake at all, this actually occurred near Palmer Station on the Antarctic peninsula. So we must REJECT this hypothesis. The pictures are REAL.

Hypothesis 2: The pictures ARE of a wave that froze in mid-air.

This is a good starting point for hypotheses in this case. The pictures claim to be of a wave that froze in mid-air so this becomes our null hypothesis and must be taken into account. Lets look at the facts first. Ambient air temperatures can decrease to a level that boiling water will freeze when it hits the air. Even here in Antarctica I have seen hot water be thrown into the air where some of it evaporates on the spot and some of it freezes and hits the ground. So if that is possible (especially in the coldest part of winter when temperatures decrease far lower then they are currently) is this really a wave?

Think about what would have to be true. First there would have to be an open body of water that could splash up. In our research we drill holes into the lakes and sea ice and water does escape, but the holes freeze over so quickly that even while we are sampling we are forced to drill more holes because our instruments no longer fit throw the shrinking diameter of the hole. So the likelihood that such a wave could come from anywhere other then the ocean is small. Furthermore, the ice edge that borders the ocean near McMurdo can be hundreds of feet higher then the surrounding ocean, so waves could not get over the ice pack. In areas more near Palmer, where these photos were taken, the ice edge is not as staggering; however it remains true that if a wave froze instantly it would then drop to the ground, no longer supported by water's elastic and surface tension properties. At this point ice crystals would fall to the ground and be smashed. Finally, ice that freezes instantly is opaque in color (the glassy color comes from ice melting rather then ice forming) and has many more impurities than ice that is formed slowly has.

Hypothesis 3: Victoria (3rd grade) Hammond Elementary School: The structure was formed by glacier or Mountain water that melted creating a waterfall that refroze to form this wave-like formation.

This is a great hypothesis and it really uses a lot of different ideas that come into play in ice formation in Antarctica. The first important idea is that ice can melt, glacier ice does in deed melt and create waterfalls off the side of the glacier. Melting is also how glaciers move and glacial water replenishes the valley lakes that we work on every day.

So this is a great deduction. And as Victoria states, and I stated before, because of the type of ice that is shown (very glassy blue ice) it is possible to state that melting was in integral part of the ice wave, not as the e-mail suggests, freezing.

Hypothesis 3: They are formed by wind, similar to the great ventifact rock structures of the valley.

This is an interesting point. Several of the glaciers really are shaped by the wind the photo shown (right above) is of the Canada Glacier which is shaped by wind, just like rocks. The sides of some glaciers look like ripples on the water because the effect the wind has shaping the ice. This picture of the Seuss Glacier (right below) is one example of how the wind can make amazing patterns.

So this is a great hypothesis. And perhaps wind had something to do with the formation of these giant structures. But the fact still remains that the ice had to come from somewhere. It it is not water that was frozen and it is not compacted snow, or a glacier that was already in existence, then what in fact is it?

So what is REALLY happening?

The area of Antarctica where this photo was taken is the peninsula area. This is the most delicate ecosystem in Antarctica because it is north enough that the temperatures can change quite drastically.

Therefore, water flows during the majority of the Antarctic summer and icebergs like those portrayed in movies such as The Day After Tomorrow are formed rather regularly. Icebergs like these keep most of their mass below water. The water that surrounds the icebergs is warmer then the ice, so it makes sense that the ice will melt from the bottom up (which is the reverse of how ice freezes). When the underside of giant icebergs begins to melt the bergs can become very unstable.

A good experiment we can do to test this hypothesis is to find an ice cube and melt it in a glass of warm water. How does the ice melt? From the bottom or top? Does it start rocking around if you shake the glass slightly? Could you imagine that in a storm a big half melted iceberg could flip over?

That is exactly what we think happened in this case. The iceberg that was already melted on the bottom by the warmer water circling around it, became unstable, and in a storm it flipped over. The formation looks like it has been shaped by the wind or that it even was flowing water. But to the contrary the ice was melted due to the surrounding water!

Does it make sense? What do you think?

Thank you for your comments, especially Victoria of Mr. Hector's 3rd grade class. Keep reading and hypothesising and we can all come up with more answers to the really important questions!

Looking Down.

2008-03-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

There are few things that I expected of Antarctica; one was that I would see things, while looking up, that I have never seen before. I was right about that and when I first arrived in the Dry Valleys my eyes were glued to the mountain ranges and glaciers. For the past few blogs I have attempted to convey some of the wonders of these landscapes, from Mt Erebus to the ice bergs floating at sea, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the astounding wonder of all the things there are to see closer to the ground . In short, Antarctica is one of those few places on earth where looking down can be just as interesting as looking up—here’s why.

I work on lakes in the Dry Valleys. Every day we are walking across frozen lakes to get out to the Polar Haven, where we do research. Sometimes we can find clumps of agal mats (shown left and below) that represent the life that survives underneath the ice of Lake Chad. These algal mats float to the surface of the lakes during the Antarctic summer when Lake Chad is finally ice free.

The texture of the ice on each of the lakes is so different that it is almost possible to discern which lake you are on solely by looking down at the lake ice. Parts of Bonney and all of Chad are so glassy that you can see down to the rocks that scatter the bottom of the lakes. They also have hidden caves in the layers of ice, which make walking treacherous to the unaware, but which also turn the lake into a mysterious land of secret forts and hideaways.

In the Polar Haven we use niskins (tube-like bottles that catch water only from one certain depth) and winches to gather our samples. Looking down through the hole in the lake ice (which is around 3-4 meters thick) we can see water frothing as instruments are lowered down and when we look closely we can see the sediment trapped in the bubbles in the ice.
The wind howls through the valleys at such speeds that rocks and glaciers alike are carved and molded into ventifacts that scatter the ground and the sides of mountains. These huge sculptures are shaped by the wind that howls through the valleys whipping our faces and freezing uncovered fingers. Smaller stones also cover the desert ground and occasionally flurries of snow whip through creating a thin blanket of white on all of the surfaces.

Mystery of the Ice...

2008-03-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

Check out this Antarctic Wave....
The temperature is below freezing for the majority of the year and streams only flow for the two months of summer. However, in this picture you can see what looks like a frozen wave.

YOU BE THE SCIENTIST:
Question: What caused the formation of this ice structure?
Create a HYPOTHESIS and make sure you are able to tell us WHY your hypothesis is realistic.
Remember that having a hypothesis is the most important part. The correctness of your hypothesis doesn’t really matter, BUT you do need to have a REASON for your hypothesis (so give us the reason)!

Please respond to this post using the comments button and leave your name, school, and age in the spot of a ‘nick name.’

Sunset.

2008-02-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

Antarctica is located at the bottom of the globe. It is one of the two places on earth that sees almost exactly six months of winter and six months of summer. The seasons are dictated not by snow, which we see year round, but rather by the presence or absence of the sun. In the summer the sun is in the sky for more hours than in the winter, the same is true all over the world. Right now in Oregon the sun is staying in the sky for an extra ~2.5 minutes longer each day, so the days are getting longer. Here in Antarctica the opposite is happening.

Here the days are getting shorter as we enter winter. For the next 48 days the length of our days will decrease by 30 minutes a day. This means that we lose in one day more then you gain in one week!

But don't worry. It will not be until mid March that I start to really feel the effects of the darkening skies. At that point the days will start becoming noticeably shorter, for now we will just be having darker nights, which will be pretty fun.

And there are good things to look forward to. First of all when the sun sets we will finally be able to see stars! Also with the darkening skies we get to see sunsets and sunrises, and most importantly we may be able to see the Aurora Australis or Southern Lights.

Aurora Australis are formed by a group of charged particles that reach the Polar Regions from the sun. Through a series of collisions these particles increase their energy and then lose excess energy in the form of light. The reason these lights are often seen in polar regions is that a wind and very cold temperatures are needed to see the brilliant colors; however, they can be seen as far south as Montana.

I will not be seeing the Aurora for some time yet, but for now we can see the moon in the dusky sky, hanging over our camp like a silent reminder of what is yet to come...

2008-02-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

SoLaR EcLiPsE...

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, potentially blocking out all sunlight and throwing parts of the earth into midday darkness. A partial solar eclipse occurred here in Antarctica just last week. The eclipse that we saw had 80% coverage, so the sun was not completely behind the moon. In America when partial eclipses occur you can look at the sun with special lenses or OMSI glasses and still observe the moon slowly creeping along in front of the sun. Depending on where you are and the percentage of the sun that is blocked, it may even still look like the sky is darkening.

The eclipse that we saw was very interesting. All of the scientists in Crary Lab went outside at around 4:20 in the afternoon and looked up at the sun with goggles and camera lenses as eye protection. (Remember that because we are so far south the sun was still very high in the sky, at 4pm the sun looks like it does at 11am in the States!)

Even though the eclipse was not total the sky did darken slightly, it looked like dusk was coming on, which after having the last month of 24 hour sunlight was quite a lot! But because there is so much snow and ice covering the ground in Antarctica the little sun that did shine through got reflected off the white ground and scarttered across McMurdo so that it still seemed bright to us.

Keep in mind that these pictures show the sun in a darkened sky because that is the only way the camera will produce a shot.

Girls in Science:

2008-02-21T19:49:00.000-08:00

Please pass this on to all who might be interested! Join an expedition to discover the world of glaciers Girls on Ice is a unique eleven-day leadership program for teenage girls that combines leadership, mountaineering and science. The program takes place *July 28-August 7, 2008 * and is free to girls who qualify via amerit-based application process. It is open to girls 15-18 years old who have shown a keen interest in exploring the world of science and the outdoors. Nine young women will be selected and the ideal candidate willbe an inquisitive, adventurous girl who would like to learn more about scientific inquiry, research, careers in science and the North-West environment. It is the only program in the nation that combines leadership, scientific inquiry and mountaineering for teenage girls. Itprovides a rare opportunity for young women to feel at home in the wilderness while observing the natural world through the unique lens of science under the guidance of professional female glaciologists and mountaineers. Applications due March 15, 2008 Please visit Girls on Ice for more information and an application packet or feel free to contact Erin at epettit@pdx.edu.

Finding WATER in a DESERT.

2008-02-05T13:09:00.003-08:00

Water is the most interesting naturally abundant substance on Earth, it is the medium of life, and it is scarce, especially in the desert. One of the most important reasons the Dry Valleys need to be protected is because the ecosystem here is so simplified. Unlike the forests and groves of the Portland valleys this area has little influx of nutrients from rain, rivers, or animals. Furthermore, it also has limited macro organisms to disrupt the balance of the microbial life in the lakes.

"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature."

-Henry David Thoreau-

First the Facts:

Ninety-seven percent of the water on the planet is in the form of salt water. Only 3 percent is fresh, and two-thirds of that is ice.

Water molecules are made of one oxygen and two hydrogen's bonded together.

Water is a POLAR molecule so each side bears a slight charge, the Oxygen side is partially negative and the Hydrogen side is partially positive.

Water is relatively incompressible.

Water has a very high surface tension which allows you to fill a glass up above the rim without spilling anything on the floor (make sure to be very careful!!!).

When cooled to its freezing temperature (0°C, 32°F, under standard pressure), water changes to a colorless, crystalline solid (ice).

Water is one of the only liquids on earth that expands during freezing and is therefore less dense in its solid form (ice) than as a liquid at 4°C.

Water is the universal solvent (which means it is the best liquid to dissolve particles in).

The United States uses three times as much water a day as the average European country, and many, many times more water than most developing nations.

The main fact is that WATER is LIFE.

Here in Antarctica our research takes place where the life is—beneath the ice. Remember that when ice forms it incorporates only pure water into its crystalline matrix. The molecules that remain are in the water and the concentration of these compounds changes based on depth (this is because temperature and ambient light also changes with depth). So water beneath ice has an extremely different composition from other water. The water beneath the ice holds trapped dissolved CO2 (not commonly found dissolved in lakes), dissolved O2 (present in other lakes, remember seeing small bubbles in the water?), and is very saline (salty), all of the compounds work together to give life to the extremophiles that habitat the water columns.

The BIGGER picture:

The Lakes of the Dry Valleys are treated scientifically like a baseline of research. When they are understood it is possible to further understand the more complex ecosystems of this world. More importantly due to the fragile state of this ecosystem the effects of global climate change or climate warming are drastically expressed by the lakes. When lake ice thickness diminishes it changes the amount of ambient sunlight that reaches the lower depths of water. Slight increases in temperature or increases in the amount of light can both have drastic effects on the microorganisms of the lakes. Changes like these can influence metabolism, temperature regulation, reproduction, and evolution. All of these things together lead scientists to believe that the changes in the lakes of the Dry Valleys are a good representation of the changes that could occur in our world if global warming continues.

Research: Dry Valleys, Antarctica

2008-01-30T18:23:00.000-08:00

Day One: Set Up. The focal point of this research is to determine the composition of the lake water present of the four lakes in the Taylor Valley of Antarctica. To do this we take samples of lake water at various pre-determined depths below the ice. These lakes are all permanently ice covered, so initially a hole was created using a Hotsi (this is hot coil of wire that is run on a generator and it melts the ice in a circular area), this was done initially several years ago, so all we had to do was reopen the hole. To do this we used a chipper bar and broke away the ice. Then we measured the ice thickness in three different holes.

Day Two: Sampling. The sampling takes place in one day. Most of the material we are analyzing is organic and inorganic matter, bacteria, carbon, phosphate, nitrogen and other elements. However, we are also sampling for chlorophyll a (used in photosynthesis to turn light energy into usable energy or sugars for plants) and as a precaution the chlorophyll a cannot be exposed to light so much of the research must be done in semidarkness.
4:00 AM. Out of bed, into the snow gear, and down to the hut for a quick snack.
4:45 AM Head out to the lake and get ready to start the sampling.
5:00 AM Start sampling. This is a three person job, one person is in charge of pulling the samples up from the hole, another is in charge of filling the bottles with lake water, and the third puts chemicals into particular samples.
7:00 AM Some of the samples are tagged with isotopes (an isotope is a chemical that can bind in place of other compounds, but it has been radioactively modified so that it can be picked up during analysis).
8:00 AM Back at camp for breakfast (the other two people here cook for the three that are up early), then before we even sit down to eat we start filtering on 6 deepest depths.

Filtering is done using a special filter about the size of a nickel. Three different types of filtering are done, one picks up only Carbon-Nitrogen compounds or CNs, another picks up Phosphorus, and the last picks up chlorophyll, so this means all filtering is done in the dark, so as not to ruin the chlorophyll samples.
Particles that are in the water are often off white, but some have color like this sample (photo left) which was taken at 25 meters below the top of liquid water (this sample took over 4 hours to filter completely).
Break for lunch, Break for dinner, samples are finished by 6-7 PM and then the day winds down. Clean up the labs, and hop in bed, grateful that everything went according to schedule.

Day Three:
Finish up the tests.
We also run other tests that I will go into in more detail later. But for now here is a picture of my tent (below) and the huge glacier right behind it!

MOVIE

2008-01-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Here is the time lapse video that a buddy of mine Scott the balloonatic (ie. working with the giant balloons that are sent into the upper atmosphere to measure the hole in the ozone layer) anyway it is the movie he put together of our happy camper group building our snow wall. I really hope this clip works (if it doesn't you can go to YouTube.com and type in "happy campers from McMurdo build snow wall").

I am wearing black sunglasses, a wine red shirt, black overalls, and no hat. I start out on the very right hand corner of the snow wall (as you are looking at it, I am facing the camera though so it is my left, your right) then I move to the oppisite side to secure the other corner of the wall. The movie is only 2.5 minutes but in real time this took 12 of use around 40 minutes to make. The people who are really sawing the blocks out of the quarry aren't even shown in this video, but they were doing hard work too, then the blocks had to be brought over to the carpenters at the wall (that was me!) we were using saws like you see in wood work shops.

Question and Answer:

2008-01-14T02:35:00.000-08:00

The Life of Science: The life of science is very different from ordinary life. Upon entering into this life one realizes the interdependence of the experiments and the experimenter. One cannot survive without the other, and therefore the good scientist makes sacrifices for their science.

1) What is your daily schedule like? Our schedules are based on the schedule of our experiments. While out in the field for example we will wake up at 4am. Then by 5am we will be sampling on the lakes, this will take around 2 hours and then the samples will be processed for the following 24 hours (this starts at 7:30 and ends the next morning at 7:30). So when you put your new samples in you retrieve yesterday’s samples and analyze them in the lab. Remember we are studying: salt (NaCl), bubble air (CO2 and O2), chlorophyll a (photosynthesis), bacteria (extremophiles) and the overall composition of the water sample. So that should take us into the night. Our group will have it worked out so that the three people who get up early go to bed a little earlier. Then the other two people will stay up until midnight running the samples until they are done.

2) What are you doing right now? Right now I am stationed at McMurdo still. This is the main lab station for all of the research done in this part of Antarctica (the other three stations are: South Pole, Palmer-in the peninsula, and Scott Base-which is a Kiwi only group). My job right now is to prepare for all of the bacteria runs that we will be doing out in the field. I am washing and labeling bottles, preparing gels for the bacteria to be grown on, and organizing for our flight to the dry valleys. Some members of my group have left for the dry valleys already, so right now I am in charge of all the preparations, which includes getting all of the needed food ready for flight. I should be headed toward Lake Bonney in one weeks time (weather dependent of course).

When I am lucky I get to go on hikes, the picture shown is from a recent hike to Castle Rock and after getting there I climbed up it (around 1,000 feet).

I am also working with another researcher here at McMurdo. We are looking at stream water (which flows into the lakes I will be studying). We are sampling the water and testing the amount of sediment that is suspended in it. The ecosystem here in the Dry Valleys is very co-dependent on all the variables. The glaciers melt into the streams which then flow into the lakes. This glacial flow represents the only nutrients that the lakes will be receiving all year, so it is all very important!

3) Is it colder then you expected? Right now it is still summer here in Antarctica, and the summer is much warmer then I expected. On a daily bases I am wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt. When you go on hikes up Ob Hill for instance, then it gets a little colder and you want to have a parka and long underwear on, but for the most part it is warm here. By warm I mean around 20-25 degrees F. It will get much colder soon however, when winter comes in mid February the sun will go down and the temperature will drop significantly.

4) The animals that we see around McMurdo are Skuas (shown right, it feeds on krill and fish), seals (we are currently right on the sound so we can see the sea ice where the seals constantly break through and lay around on the ice) and, if you are lucky, Penguins! Penguins move around a lot so it is really hard to catch them around the sound. The last sighting of Penguins was around a week ago at 3am... I missed that one.

5) Will you see Penguins in the Dry Valleys? Hopefully not. The Dry Valleys are, remember, a desert. There is no liquid water there and no mammals besides humans can survive there. In short, like any desert, the poor animals (including humans) who are unlucky enough to get lost in the Dry Valleys, end up dying there. So the only penguins and seals I will find will be mummified specimens. (Which I will not touch or disturb because it is not a part of my research project and it is therefore prohibited.)

6) Do you like it in Antarctica? YES! I love it here, the people are amazing, the research is really interesting and life is really exciting. It is a hard life to get used to and it is important to make time to relax. Research is a full time job so we all have to work hard to make sure that we are stopping for the day eventually. We also have to make sure that we are going to sleep. No matter how awake you feel at midnight when the sun is still high in the sky and the air is cold on your face, you need to remind yourself that tomorrow will be just as beautiful, and you need your sleep. Also because we are in such a tight community lots of people are currently coming down with the flu. So we have to be really careful that we don't get sick. Sickness out in the field is horrible, and sickness here in McMurdo is not much better.

7) What do you eat? Unlike past explorers who had to resort to eating seal meat and their dogs to stave off scurvy, we are lucky here at McMurdo and there is never a shortage of food! Much of our food is flown in from New Zealand (or even brought in by ships like the Oden shown right), so our food is really good and fresh (mostly, out in the field it will be frozen and/or dried). However, when the flights are delayed it affects the food too. Also we have our own green house here, something I wasn't expecting. All of our fresh veggies are grown right here in Antarctica; of course we are very careful that no seeds or pollen escapes the green house area because that would contaminate this pristine environment.

8) When I head out to the Dry Valleys (in one week) I will stay there for around 5 days, then return to McMurdo to prepare for the next trip and investigate what we found on this current trip. Starting in February my group will begin to stay in the valleys for a month at a time and then return to McMurdo for a week. McMurdo itself shuts down in mid February because most people leave. My group of 14 scientists is the first one ever to stay in the dry valleys during the extended season until April 17.

Question and Answer:

2008-01-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

1) How thick is the ice underneath you? Actually right now I am still at McMurdo; here we are strictly land based. There is a snow pack that is very heavy in some areas, but we are not out on the ice at all right now because it is the end of the austral summer and the sea ice is far to thin to move about on safely. The sea ice however gets very thick in the winter months (Feb-Sept) and other then a thin moat that forms on the shore of the Ross Ice Shelf it is fairly thick even now. The ice breaker for instance has been making it's slow way into the sound for the last week already and is just now close enough to get good pictures of.

2) 6a All Saints: How is the penguin? The penguin that I mentioned earlier that had made its way unknowingly out onto the landing strip is perfectly fine. The plane of more than 70 people waited in the air until it safely moved away from the area. Some fire fighters scared it away but did not get close enough, even then, to touch or really scare it. The problem is penguins do not have any land predators here in Antarctica so humans and even huge planes do not scare them as they would scare a deer for instance back home.

3) We did not build an igloo exactly. We did erect three walls around our camp and that was done by using carpenter saws and sawing the compacted snow into blocks. The cave that we made for shelter is slightly different and is known as a Quincy. In order to build this first we arranged all of our big baggage and sleeping pads into a mound on the ground. Then we covered the mound with 2 feet of snow and packed it down as much as possible. After that we went back to building walls and erecting tents for the next hour. At this point you dig a small hole in the back of the Quincy and pull out all of the luggage. Then you continue to dig out a little more of the inside and make your main entrance. Next you plug your backdoor or safety exit and poke air holes through the top of the cave (this lets in new air so don't forget to do that!) Then you are done with your ice cave.

Happy Camper:

2008-01-10T18:03:00.001-08:00

Day 5: 9 Jan, 2008 (NZ time)
As I got down on my stomach and wormed my way through the narrow opening of our Scott tent it was impossible not to reminisce about the first Antarctic explorers, or rather scientists, and what they went through to get where we are today. While Amundsen and his group reached the Pole first, and returned home to tell the tale, Scott is the name on everyone’s lips in Antarctica, and as we finished the first day of Happy Camper and crawled into our own bags, I was beginning to realize why.
The winds picked up right after we finished erecting two Scott tents and the center wall, but the Quincy or ice hut (fitting two), two camping tents, two more ice walls, and the kitchen still had to be built, and the twelve of us had been working for 3 hours. After his ponies died (one month in) Scott and his men were forced to walk pulling over 1500 pounds on what were already heavy wooden sledges, moreover they were on makeshift skis. As we finished the tents and the East wall the winds shifted uncharacteristically quickly and came billowing from the South. Looking southward, my head bowed against the intense winds, I attempted to distinguish the distinctive southerly Antarctic features of White and Black Islands. What I saw was distressing, the winds were indeed issuing from the South and already Black Island was barely discernable behind the thick cloud cover. To make the situation even more ominous our leader’s pager kept going off to inform her that an accident had occurred involving the caravan of ATV’s we had just seen pass by us.
Hurriedly we finished the final wall and packed our backs and tools away so they would not be subject to the heavy winds, then we ate. Our group was made up of four young desert scientists, three cooks/dishwashers, two astrophysicists’, two teachers and one balloonatic (you may have heard about the ozone testing with balloons), and our dinner conversation rivaled any that you could imagine. But even with subjects like supernovas, the expanding universe, and black holes to hold my attention I kept peeking over the shelter to keep my eye on the approaching storm. Already by 7pm the summer sky was darkening, and though it was nice to have the illusion of dusk around us, I knew it was not from the sinking sun.
Everything stayed up that night and only the sound of the vigorously flapping flags could be heard through the canvas tents. Not until the next day did conditions enter condition 2 (low visibility, heavy winds, or very cold), so now we are waiting at McMurdo for planes and helicopters to be able to fly again (everything has been grounded the last three days). Our group is getting excited to head out toward the dry valleys, but we are going to have to wait until next Thursday at the earliest (Jan 17).
Even given the cold weather my coldest experience on Antarctica yet occurred yesterday when I was in the freezer pulling food for an hour. All my love and thank you all for your responses…

Something to Think About: We also went through several scenarios to test our abilities to survive the harsh conditions we could be facing out in the field. One such scenario was meant to give us the idea of what a whiteout during condition 1 weather would be like. During this scenario 'lost' one of our teammates and only had one climbing rope to go find her (we all had white buckets over our heads to signify the whiteout). The first time we went the wrong direction and eventually we managed to pull the front end of the line back to where we were meant to be. But it had been 20 minutes and the person would have died. The second time we did better but again our planning took too long and the person would have had horrible hypothermia had it been a real case scenario.

On the ICE

2008-01-05T13:13:00.000-08:00

Day One: Jan 4, 2008 (NZ time)
A loud crack sounded over the intercom and heads all around me snapped up from books and papers as 70 sets of eyes found their ways to the window of the cockpit. “Uhh,” my heart raced, I wondered if the plane was about to boomerang, “Uhh, we’re going to circle until the fire station clears the runway…there’s a penguin out there.”

Smiles cracked all around me, even the old timers who have been to the ice 15 or more seasons laughed, this is what happens here, in this strange new place. That is not to say that getting to McMurdo was a synch, the base is 9,500 miles from Portland and planes are often forced to return or boomerang back to New Zealand due to harsh weather (one group had 7 such boomerangs before eventually landing on the ice), so I was relieved and ecstatic.
I am not sure what to say about my first step off the plane. For the thirty minute bus ride to the base I didn’t say anything at all, the snow pack and -5C temperature along with Mt Erebus literally took my breath away. As we boarded the bus people shouted about penguins and the cold, but I had eyes only for Erebus. Standing at 12,500 feet Erebus is the most active volcano in Antarctica and we were directly in its shadow. Its sharp icy ridges and continual plume of thick milky smoke make it look even more formidable and it is therefore no wonder that early explorers named it after their valiant ship that was the first to conquer the journey to the Antarctic.

LAB 1:Currently I am located at the main Crary lab in McMurdo (photo shown left is from the top of Observation Hill). This lab is very large and has all of the common conveniences. However, within the next week my team and I will be leaving the comforts of McMurdo and heading out into the felid where the real science begins.
Doing research can mean anything from stepping outside into the yard and collecting rain water to taking a helicopter plane two hours away and camping for up to a month at a time. Here in Antarctica we are doing the latter of the two… This gives an entirely new meaning to preparing for the field.
Usually in science you will prepare to be out in the filed for a day or two of sampling but you will be able to return to the lab to analyze your data. Here it is a completely different story. We will be without things like: containers, sinks, WATER, chemicals, cleaning solutions, zip lock bags, and everything else unless we bring it. Therefore, for the next week before we leave we are all planning, cleaning bottles, washing equipment, and packaging everything in bubble wrap so that it is safe for the 2 hour helicopter ride. Apart from all of that we are planning all of our meals (to feed 5) for the next two weeks and bringing that food with us to the field camps too. So there is a lot of work to do and when we are not in classes or lectures we are in the lab preparing. While doing so however we are all repeating the mantra that soon the grunt work will be over and we will be heading out to sample.
One thing at a time though. Each bottle must be washed then rinsed three times, labeled with tape, packaged, boxed, and sent out to the hanger before we go.

Penguin Research:

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Penguin research has been going on in Antarctica for over 50 years now. It has been a highly debated area of research because of the currently changing climate and the possible longterm effects that will have on the Emperor, Adélie (photo), and Macaroni Penguins of Antarctica (make sure to click on the interactive MAP in the upper right corner of this blog to see the distribution of the various penguins in Antarctica).

Adélie Penguins:

These birds inhabit the Ross Island Sea. Currently there are roughly 5 million penguins making up 38% of Adélie colonies, and they are all dependent on the delicate ecosystem of the Ross Sea, which itself makes up only 10% of the Antarctic coastline. To learn more about the researching being done with Adélie penguins click here: Penguin Science.

Antarctic Exploration, a History:

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TIMELINE:

350 BC: The Ancient Greeks first hypothesised the existence of Antarctica based on the notion of symmetry. They knew about the existence of the northern arctic area and thus inferred that there should be an equal but opposite such area in the south. This they called Ant-arctic which then became Antarctica. They never made it even close to Antarctica, it was just a lucky guess, made by philosophers rather than scientists!

1773: James Cook (British) crossed the Antarctic circle and circumnavigated the ice mass. Cook didn't see land, but he found rock sediment in the ice and theorized the existence of another continent.

1819-1821: Several explorers, Russian then British, claimed title of first to 'discover' Antarctica and see the land mass that is the continent. This is the first and only TRUE discovery of a continent, meaning that there are no native peoples of Antarctica. Later in 1821 the first landing on Antarctica occurs by American, John Davis.

1840's: British James Clark Ross took two ships, Erebus and Terror, to the massive ice shelf later named for him. A scientist on the ship identifies 145 new species of fish.

Exploration continued, using wooden ships (photo left), which would flex slightly when rammed into and through the heavy icebergs of the Antarctic ocean and in cases where landing was desired the ships would ram directly into ice shelf's, like the Ross Ice Shelf.

1902: Captain Robert Falcon Scott set up lodging on the coast (photo right) and attempted to reach the South Pole using a sledge party. Scott traveled with Shackleton, Wilson, and horses. The use of horses was the downfall of Scott's first expedition. Horses consume an enormous amount of food (all of which had to be brought from Europe) and when they die due to cold they do not cannibalize, because they are of course herbivores. Scott's company was forced to turn back after reaching the 82nd parallel due to snow blindness and scurvy. *Snow blindness occurs because of to the intensity of the reflected glare off snow, scurvy is a condition which sets in due to lack of fresh fruit and meat.

RACE to the POLE...

1910
Roald Amundsen (left)

VS.

Robert F. Scott (right)

Norwegan Roald Amundsen deeply desired to beat the British Scott to his goal of reaching the South Pole. Though Amundsen told everyone publicly that he was heading for the North Pole he secretly knew the intended destination long before he began preparations for the trip. When Amundsen finally announced his plan to beat Scott, to his crew and the world, Scott became deeply distressed.
The pressure lead to Scott's decision to prepare food, fuel, ponies, sledges, and the ship in one week, a job which Amundsen did over the course of a year.

Differences that made the Difference:
Amundsen started on the Ross Ice Shelf which decreased the total distance marched by 80 miles. (see map below; A-red, S-blue)
Amundsen had 5 men and 52 dogs; Scott had 5 men and ponies, which only lasted 4 weeks.
In the days and months before starting Amundsen left depots of food and supplies so they only had to pack enough to arrive to the South Pole on their sledges, everything else they would pick up upon return.
On Friday December 14, 1911 Amundsen (right) and crew reached the South Pole. They were so keen to ensure they had really reached the pole that they calculated for 3 days and skied in a 10 mile wide circle around the area just in case. Then they stood up a Norwegian flag and left a note for Scott when he arrived.
Scott arrived 33 days later on January 17, 1912. They began dying a month later and all perished in an 8 day long blizzard that caught them when they were only 11 miles from the next deposit of food. They had run out of oil because the lids of the cans leaked and they were suffering of scurvy and fatigue.
detailed history

The difficulties of travel for both parties were tremendous, and much of the difficulty was increased because of the time period the exploration was occurring in. First of all, the voyages started on ship. All materials, food, water, animals, ect. had to be packed onto the ship and survive for the voyage through choppy waters and cold winds. When the ship finally arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf the only way to land was to ram the ship into the ice. Sometimes the winter and summer would be so cold that even when the crew needed to set off they could not remove the ship from the surrounding ice, so they had to be prepared for anything. The clothing was another problem all together. At that time the warmest clothes were fur based. When they would sweat the fur held excess moisture and would freeze the clothes at night. Even worse the moisture would freeze the fur sleeping bags and each night the men would be forced to worm their way into frozen bags, sleeping became torture, and the bags were very heavy to pull. The worst disaster occurred when one of Scott's men got frostbite on his feet. When the feet became blackened walking was agony and returning from the pole was impossible. Scurvy (caused by a lack of Vitamin C) left men feeling weak, tired, and achy. One of Scott's men suffered from the appearance of big red blood-blisters which grow into larger purplish blotches on the skin of the legs and feet, which also made walking excruciating.

SOUTH POLE

Roald Amundsen

and dogs (left)
VS.
Robert F. Scott

and team(right)

Facts about the Frozen Desert:

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LOCATION: Antarctica is found at the bottom of the traditional globe, is called the most southern point of Earth, and houses the magnetic field of the South Pole. Some people even wonder whether everything is upside down at the South Pole....

But, no, sadly everything will NOT

be upside down south of the equator.

Gravity will prevail--even in the south...

Furthermore, strictly speaking Antarctica has not always housed the South Pole. No, just like all continents Antarctica has drifted throughout history, so much so that at one point (500 million years ago) it was near the equator and dinosaurs inhabited the land that is now present day Antarctica.

SIZE: Antarctica is the fifth biggest continent on Earth and it is roughly 1.5 times the size of the US.

GEOGRAPHY: 98% of Antarctica is covered by a sheet of ice that averages 1 mile in thickness. The majority of the central part of the continent lacks ice completely and constitutes the biggest desert in the world. The ice sheet contains 87% of the world's ice. A general increase in technology has allowed scientists and geologists to generate a picture of the land mass as it would look without the surrounding ice. (Keep in mind that if the ice was really removed the oceans would rise by hundreds of meters and the land mass itself would rise due to the removal of the depressing weight of the ice.) view image

CLIMATE: "On average, Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents" (Wikipedia) Average temperatures are the coldest on Earth. On average only 6 days a year are above freezing.

Winter* temperatures range from -112 to -130 degrees F.

(*winter in Antarctica is the summer in the US)

Summer temperatures range from 0 to -40 degrees F. (these

are the temperatures that I will be faced with in February)

POPULATION: Antarctica has no permanent residents (aside from penguins), although 1,000 people in winter and roughly 4,000 people during the summer are present.

ANIMALS:

Antarctic Krill: Small crustaceans that are eaten by many animals, including baleen whales. (photo right)
Arctic Tern: A small bird that flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back again each year. (photo above left)
Blue Whale: A baleen whale that is the largest animal that ever lived on Earth.
E mperor Penguin: The largest penguin; it lives on

ice packs in Antarctica. (photo left)
Humpback Whale: A long-flippered baleen whale that sings and frolics in the water. (photo right)
Minke Whale: The smallest baleen whale. It sings and has a white band on each flipper.
Octopus: Octopi have eight legs and live on the sea floor.
Orca or Killer Whale: A toothed whale that lives in small pods.
Penguin: Penguins are birds that swim very well but cannot fly.

Sea Star: Sea stars, another name for starfish, are animals that live on the ocean floor. (photo left)
Spectacled Porpoise: A porpoise (a small toothed whale) from the Southern Hemisphere.
Sperm Whale: The largest toothed whale, over 50 feet long. It eats giant squid.
Squid: The squid is a fast-swimming invertebrate with ten arms.
Weddell Seal: The Weddell seal is a large, nocturnal pinniped from Antarctica. (photo right)

POLITICS: Antarctica has no government and belongs to no country. In addition, many different countries have signed the Antarctic Treaty System, which states that Antarctica will remain a scientific preserve and has banned all military activity on the continent. To date 46 countries have signed the treaty, this map shows the original claims.

EXTREMOPHILES?

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What are Extremophiles?

BACTERIA!

Everything about how important these bacteria

are depends on WHERE they live and HOW they survive!

Here are some examples of WHERE Extremophiles LIVE:

From Acid Mud Pots to Basic Salt Layers

From Boiling Liquids to Ice Layers

Now those are some really EXTREME environments!

HOW do these organisms SURVIVE?
In Yellowstone National Park there are many variations of thermophiles (heat lovers) that survive by using photosynthesis, which is the same process that green plants and algae use in your own backyard! These thermal vents have a greenish yellow tint to them due to the continual photosynthesis of the millions of extremophiles.

WHY are these organisms IMPORTANT?

Bacteria that can survive at temperatures as

high as 240 degrees F or as

low as -90 degrees F

may have useful properties for scientific purposes, for example one thermophile already being used in a process for copying DNA is known as TAQ Polymerase and was found in Yellowstone Park in the US. The research being done by the Priscu Research Group in Antarctica has also already found many forms of extremophiles living in the ice that covers several lakes in the dry valleys of Antarctica. This is an area that was once thought to be devoid of life so these bacteria may have interesting and useful properties just like the ones in Yellowstone.
Furthermore, scientists now believe that life originated in ice. This means that the mechanisms of evolution and development of life found today in Antarctica may be a present day model of the origin of life how it occurred 6.4 billion years ago!

Also life in ICE may mean that life could exist on MARS where ice has been recently found.

But how do Bacteria SURVIVE inside of ICE??

It is impossible for bacteria to survive and reproduce if they are completely frozen. So how have they survived for billions of years in the ices of the earth? The answer lies inside the ice.

When ice forms in your freezer it forms quickly, so quickly that impurities in the water are hastily incorporated into the ice as well. This does not occur in Antarctica. The ices that year round cover the valleys of Antarctica have formed very slowly and at much lower temperatures than ice in your freezer. Because of this Antarctica ice is PURE. Actually when I get there that is the water I will be drinking!

So where are the extremophiles?

The ice in your freezer and Antarctica both form bubbles as air is trapped in the freezing water. Some of these bubbles form lattice networks (see image, right.) Inside these networks of trapped air the temperature is slightly higher than the surrounding ice. Because of this slight increase in temperature some water is able to remain in its liquid phase.

It is inside of this water that rests at the bottom of the bubbles (see image, left) that bacteria are able to survive and thrive.

Delving Deeper:

Take a look for yourself at how the research group that I am with isolates the bacteria that are inside the ice layers of the Antarctica lakes. Priscu Research Group