Zombie Apocalypse: The Weddell Way

Seen while leading a Pressure Ridge Tour.  Weddell Seals have begun to mass for an attempt at over running McMurdo in search of brains and Bruce Campbell.  Over 100 can be seen from our bedroom window.  Their numbers grow daily.  Only known defense is for herds of Adelie Penguins to confuse them with their adorable, clumsy and energetic ways.  

Pano-ramo-rama!

A couple more panoramic pictures from the area:

This first one I took while Carolyn was leading a tour of the pressure ridges, near Scott Base:

Pressure ridges with Mt Erebus and Mt Terror behind

This was taken from right outside of our dorm building:

Royal Society Range, part of the Transantarctic Range

Science for the Classroom

We have been in touch with some teachers that are interested in including polar studies in their curriculum.  We aren't scientists, but we do have some resources we would love to share about current research here in Antarctica.  We have information for teachers along with handouts created by scientists for outreach work.  If you would like a copy of these, please email us at rockycrasher@gmail.com and we will get the documents to you.

• WISSARD (Whillans Ice Stream Sub-Glacial Access Research Drilling)


• Here is an excerpt from their website, "Over the last several decades, by using ground penetrating radar and other remote sensing tools, scientists have discovered that under the massive Antarctic ice sheets there lies a vast hydrological system of liquid water.  This water exists because geothermal heat flow from below, coupled with pressure, movement, and the insulating nature of the ice sheet above, is great enough to maintain some areas at the base of the ice sheet above the freezing point, even in the extreme cold of Antarctica.  In topographic depressions there are hundreds of lakes, both large and small;  some are isolated, but many are interconnected by water channels and large areas of saturated sediments, the water eventually running out into the Southern Ocean as the ice sheet becomes a floating ice shelf."
• For more information please go to: 


• WISSARD website
• WISSARD Facebook Page
• Long Duration Balloons
• NASA is about to launch the second Long Duration Balloon to collect data on cosmic rays in the stratosphere on the edge of outer space!
• For more information please go to:
• http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm
• WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet)


• Here is an excerpt from their website:  "The U.S. research community is conducting a deep ice coring project in West Antarctica for studies of climate, ice sheet history and cryobiology.  This project is collecting a deep ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) ice flow divide and integrating approximately 40 separate but synergistic projects to analyze the ice and interpret the records.  On December 31, 2011 the project reached its final depth goal of 3,405 meters, recovering the longest U.S. ice core to date from the polar regions."


• For more information please go to:
• http://www.waisdivide.unh.edu/
• B-009 Weddell Seal study
• For more information on Weddell Seals go to: 
• http://www.aspiringecologist.com/
• O-283 Automatic Weather Stations and Antarctic Meteorological Research Centers
• For more information on weather studies go to:
• http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/aboutus/
• Penguins!
• For more information on penguins go to:
• www.penguinscience.com

Jack and Jill Went Up a Hill

Upon hearing about the death of the Antarctic explorer Robert Scott, in 1912, the carpenters aboard his ship took pieces of the ship and made a giant wooden cross.  On it they carved the names of the party members lost to the extreme conditions of the Antarctic continent along with a line from the poem "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:  "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield".  The cross was carried to the top of Observation Hill, which overlooks Hut Point and all of McMurdo Station.  100 years later, it still stands as a permanent memorial to Scott and his men.

Today you can climb to the top of Observation Hill on a short but steep trail.  It is sort of McMurdo's version of the "M-Trail" (hey Missoula!) only with NO switchbacks.  At the top you have a great view overlooking the station, the Ross Sea with the Transantarctic Mountains behind, Mt Erebus and Mt Terror and also a view of the nearby Kiwi base, Scott Base.  

It's a great little climb and we took to it a few times.  One time we went up with the intention of witnessing the launch of one of the Long Duration Balloons that are used for scientific studies.  Unfortunately, they launched the balloon early and so we didn't get to see the actual launch however we saw the balloon floating its way up toward the stratosphere.

There is also a trail that circles Observation Hill around it's base.  It is roughly 2 miles around and provides great views of the sea.  When the sea ice begins to break up it will be a great place to go to watch the orca and minke whales. 

McMurdo Station from partway up Ob Hill

 

An Antarctic Ballerina!

SKUA!

Preparing for the End of the WORLD

The end is near.  For most this may signify feelings of dread but here at the bottom of the world, we think we would fair pretty well.  We have at least 2 years of food stored in snow banks, fuel to last us the through the worst, and unless zombies learn how to swim in sub freezing water...we probably won't have too many of them.  Oh and don't worry.... in a state of world wide panic we won't even break the Antarctic Treaty which details how we recycle 65% of our trash.  We've got that waste management situation figured out too...

Skua: An Antarctic bird and also the name for our "thrift store" system of reusing clothing and other items.  

The McMurdo Rumor Mill

There are 944 people living on base.  The internet is painfully slow.  The magazines laying around the gym or in the galley are circa 2002, if you are lucky.  Heck, we live at the bottom of the world almost a day ahead of the rest of the USA... how are we suppose to know what is going on when we live in the future! Alas, not all hope is lost! The McMurdo Rumor Mill is thriving.  What your boss and HR won't share can easily be gleaned from the intricate galley chats and dorm room conversations.  Here are a few, from the far fetched folklore of days past to the current hullaballoo of McMurdo, well at least the non-X rated ones.  Note: None of my sources can be trusted:)

Winter Over Doctor: This is one of my all time favorites. A few years back, a Doctor unexpectedly had to leave the station just prior to the last flight departing the continent for winter.  HR was in a rush and hired a new doctor without giving the customary PQ (physically qualified) and psychological exams required of all winter-over employees.  MISTAKE! He wasn't quite cut out for the job.  At some point during the season he went a little off the deep end.  The galley staff reported him stealing large quantities of meat and it wasn't just a ham sandwich.  We are talking trays of bacon, which he stashed in his dorm room.  He then started doing research into the powers of static electricity.  Being the coldest and driest continent on earth, even here in the summer we are shocked by jumping blue sparks from the key to door handle.  This doc took it a bit too far and people soon found his plans to create a static electric powered spaceship on the community computer I: drive.  Not only was the bacon hoarded, but he started collecting any scrap metal and aluminum he could get his hands on for construction purposes.  Needless to say, he no longer was allowed to practice medicine on the Ice.  But since there are no planes from roughly the first week of March to the end of August, I imagine it was a long winter for all 100 people living on station.

Todd and Chris in the vinyl room. Yes Chris is wearing a wig:)  

Good Morning Vietnam: McMurdo is pretty awesome and has it's own radio station, ICE 104.5.  The base was built in 1956 and still has a room full of vinyl records from previous years.  Rumor has it that many of the records belonged to Adrian Cronauer, whom the movie "Good Morning Vietnam" is loosely based on.  Some say that after the Vietnam War, his records were transferred from that base to McMurdo.  Rumor or truth...who knows?

All Day Everyday:  Current word on the Ice is that there are 50,000 donuts on station.  Now that just seems excessive.

WWDD: Years back there was a Station Manager named Duffy who was evangelical in his preaching of morality and ethics.  The way he saw it, McMurdo was a den of sin at the bottom of the world.  In the bathrooms you can still find WWDD stickers on the paper towel dispensers.  Some people just don't change...

You're Being Watched: Some people like to say that McMurdo isn't a base for science at all.  The National Science Foundation, NASA, and university grantees are all a hoax.  McMurdo is just a huge psychological experiment for how people would survive on a station on Mars.  I'd like to think we'd fair pretty well.  But Mars doesn't have penguins. And I bet the internet would be even slower.

 So I Married An Ax-Handle Murderer: This is quintessential historical McMurdo folklore.  Woven over years and elaborated for all the new jacks like me so we get scared off and don't apply for the winter- over positions....the ax handle murder!  Rumor goes that a man became so insanely jealous over a friend dating his girl that he went crazy and broke into his room at night and beat him with an ax handle brutally murdering the guy in the middle of the dark Antarctic winter.  When I talked to Jim who was there that winter, I learned the truth.  It was a hammer handle.  And it was a murder where no one died... just a trip to the medical building.  Hopefully it wasn't the year with the crazy medical doctor, he probably would be bandaged up with bacon and sent into space using a pair of socks on carpet!

I may have given the entire station pink eye.

There is one cooler in the kitchen that stores all of the "freshies" (fresh foods like salad stuff, fruits, cheese, etc.).  Freshies only arrive every so often and so it is sort of a big deal when they do.  I went into this cooler to retrieve some items.....and may or may not have farted.  I fled the scene before anyone arrived so I can't be blamed for an inevitable pink eye pandemic.

I am so sorry.

Guiding the Pressure Ridges

Close to the Kiwi Base are beautiful and majestic ice formations shooting up from the surface of the sea ice.  These are called Pressure Ridges and we find ourselves there a few times a week guiding other McMurdo residents through the eerie glacier turquoise behemoths of ice.

The Thumbs UP!

Pressure Ridges are formed between the forces exerted from the ice shelf on the more variable sea ice.  The permanent ice shelf is actually a massive floating glacier on top of the sea.  Some estimates we have heard is that the Ross Ice Shelf is about 1,000 feet thick.  The sea ice is found closer to shore and is not permanent.  This sea ice ebbs with the changing seasons and is currently 6 or 7 feet thick and will almost completely break up and melt by January.  As the massive ice shelf exerts pressure on the sea ice it gives and forms fissures that shove ice up into ridges, thus called Pressure Ridges.  This same force mimics how mountain ranges are born on a much faster and smaller scale.  These ridges often have cracks in the vicinity due to the changing nature and thickness of the sea ice along with melt pools.  The melt pools can be fresh water, salt water, or a brackish mix depending on if they are formed by the melting water off the ridges, fed from a crack leading to the sea, or a mix of both.


Walking among the pressure ridges is an eye opening experience when you consider it through the eyes of Antarctic history and Shackleton's Endurance expedition.  Shackleton, on his third expedition to Antarctica, was attempting to land his ship the Endurance on the Antarctic Peninsula  (closest to South America).  He then was going to travel overland with dog sleds making it to the South Pole and continuing the traverse to arrive back at the Ross Sea, where McMurdo is currently located.  He was planning on having a second crew land at Discovery Hut (Scott's hut from previous Antarctic expeditions and still standing next to McMurdo) and take a second team to stash food caches along the way for Shackleton to use to complete his traverse.  Shackleton never made it that far and ran into horrible sea conditions unique to sea travel around Antarctica and especially the Weddell Sea.  The formation of the Weddell Sea and the surrounding land masses created a dangerous situation.  The pack ice trapped the boat between broken ice and icebergs. The Endurance was trapped in the pack ice for months and his crew lived in the boat.  Once the end of winter came, the pressure exerted from the ice shelf on the sea ice caused pressure ridges, which eventually encapsulated the boat and destroyed it completely.  Shackleton and the rest of his crew were forced to travel over the precarious pack ice dragging their smaller open boats and food on dog sleds over and around the pressure ridges. Navigation was difficult and the ridges of ice made travel slow and tedious.  Walking among them today really makes you appreciate the adventure and determination it must have taken long ago Antarctic explorers on such a harsh and unforgiving continent.

Pretending to be on Shackleton's expedition

We don't have it quite so rough! We simply take a group of 10 to walk a flagged route and take pictures.  The route is constantly changing due to new pressure ridges forming, cracks widening, and expanding melt pools as the season progresses.  But sometimes I like to pretend that we're lost.  Sometimes the group doesn't like that...just kidding!

If you would like to read more about Shackleton and Antarctica, check out Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.  Amazing read and an incredible example of leadership.

Mt. Erebus in the background 

Pressure Ridges

Someone flying a kite in the background

Castle Rock to the far left, Mt. Erebus and the smoking plume from the volcano in back, and a melt pool.  

Weddell Seals

Only in Antarctica Part Deux

Back by popular demand (by us), here are some more fun, weird, and interesting facts about life in Antarctica:

Fata Morgana: The fata morgana is a type of "superior mirage" appearing right above the horizon line.  It is caused when the light has to pass through different temperature layers, thus compressing and stretching the light rays.  In polar regions on very cold days, the fata morgana can sometimes be seen when looking across ice sheets.  We often see this mirage across the Ross Ice Shelf towards the Royal Society Mountains.  In this picture, the ice edge meets what appears to be very vertical cliffs at the horizon line and above are the mountains.  Those cliffs are a mirage and that image is being stretched to appear as cliffs.  We have seen the same thing happen when a vehicle drove across the horizon line and the vehicle looked like a moving two story building! Note: Chris and I can never remember the name Fata Morgana so we usually refer to it as the "mufasa francheesie".  

Life in the 90's:  As most of you could guess, there is no cell phone service down here in Antarctica, but communication is not dead.  Nope, far from it.  Here at McMurdo it is common to hear someone call to a friend, "Hey page me when you need the key".  Zack Morris would be very happy to find out that pagers are still a thriving means of communication here at McMurdo.  So is paging someone "boobs" during a meeting.  I'm just waiting for when Tomagotchi's make their comeback since we don't have pets here either:)

"Extra building materials?  Check Fu Manchu":  Equipment and materials that do not need to be stored in a reasonable environment are simply stored outdoors.  There are aisles and aisles of materials and equipment.  Construction materials, tools, extra parts for equipment that hasn't been used since the 70's....everything.  Most places use a simple letters/numbers system for easy organization.  Keeping things interesting and fun is an important part of McMurdo culture, so a simple letters/numbers system would not suffice.  In one area of storage each aisle is called a stash and to distinguish between the different stashes they are named after mustache (or 'stache) styles.

Happy Camper!!!!

About two weeks ago I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to participate in the "Happy Camper" snow course, the same class Carolyn took the week prior.  It was an absolute blast and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!  Carolyn described the course in her post and so I'll skip that, on to some pics!!!