Finally in the Field

We finally made it out into the field and we couldn't be more excited.  It was great climbing back into a helicopter.  I have to be honest it is probably my favorite part of this job.  The way those machines defy gravity is mind blowing, and I am terribly spoiled to get to ride in them for this job.  Here is a picture of an iceberg that is on the way to Taylor Valley.  It is trapped in the sea ice from the last time the sound completely opened up.  With how close the edge of the sea ice is already this year, people think that the sound might open up again this summer.  I kind of hope it does because we would be able to see whales, penguins and other sea life from town, and maybe even from New Harbor which is about a two hour hike from F6. 

Here is the Commonwealth Glacier in Taylor Valley.  This is in the Fryxell Basin right across the Lake from F6.  These massive glaciers are pretty cool.  Looks like someone spilled some pancake batter out into Taylor Valley.

Here is my new vacation home at Lake Hoare.  If you look at the pointy triangle tent, mine is the little purple and orange dome tent to the left, and Mikey is in the same type of tent but back behind mine closer to the glacier.  This is called the Canada Glacier, and it defines the eastern edge of Lake Hoare.  While you are laying in your tent you can hear the glacier crack and expand during the night.  It actually sounds just like the ice cracking on the lakes back home.

Here is a picture looking the other way towards the buildings on the Lake Hoare compound.  I debated on whether or not I should include this photo on the blog.  The picture above makes things look pretty epic and like we are pretty rugged (like a camp a Kiwi would use).  Then the photo below makes us look pretty spoiled, and well I guess we are.  The three blue buildings on the left are labs, the larger building that is hard to see behind the labs is the Lake Hoare hut where we hang out and eat, the green building is the jamesway which has extra sleeping room and is where we take our showers, and the other two buildings to the right of that are the tool shed and the generator shed.  So maybe we aren't roughing it like some of the early Antarctic expeditions, but things here are still pretty primative.  Just to give you an idea of the adverse conditions we deal with, usually our wi-fi is pretty dang slow, and the best beer they have to choose from is Coors Light.

Today we hiked to open two stream gage boxes at Green Creek and Canada Stream.  To do this we crossed Lake Hoare, and walked around the Canada Glacier over to Lake Fryxell.  As I am throwing out all of these names and places I am realizing that a good map would be useful.  I will try my best with the limited internet access to get a quality map on here to give some context.  Anyways to open up the gage boxes we have to replace the nitrogen tank in each box, grab the data module that has collected the winter data, replace it with an empty data module, and then make sure the system is working properly.  It is pretty painless minus hauling the heavy nitrogen tanks around.  

This was taken from Lake Hoare looking west toward the always picturesque 1882. 

The picture below was taken on Lake Fryxell.  We were walking near the shoreline on some insanely clear ice.  The ice was about 3 feet thick, and it extended all the way to meet the bottom of the lake where we were.  We kept noticing these crazy looking structures inside of the solid ice.  These would protrude from rocks on the lake bed, and they look like a plant, almost like some sort of seaweed.  However, there is nothing inside of these structures, they are just bubbles in the ice.  All of the structures had some algae attached to the end of them, so there is something biological going on here, but I'm still not quite sure how these are formed.

This is the stream team heading up the east side of the Canada Glacier on the hike back to Lake Hoare.  Lake Fryxell can be seen in the background.

Here we are up on the Canada Glacier.  Mikey is checking out the ice falls coming down from the Asgard Range.  I don't know what he is thinking but if I had to speculate I think it would be something like, "rad".

Here is a view from up on the glacier looking west towards the Nussbaum Riegel, which is the non-snowcapped spine in the middle of the valley

This was an excellent first day of field work.  Everything worked as it was expected, which is always a plus.  The weather was awesome, there was almost no wind which never happens in Taylor Valley.  And most importantly we got to go on a pretty spectacular hike.  Oh yeah and we got some work done too.

Hope all is well back home!  Miss you guys.

Sunday 11/15

Sunday was our first day off since we have been here, and the break was certainly needed.  We enjoyed Sunday brunch which is actually a pretty nice treat once a week.  We were feeling lazy, but somebody brought up hiking up Ob Hill, so we figured we might as well take advantage of the day off.   I had never done the hike before, so I was pretty interested in what we could see from the top.  We scaled up it pretty quick and pretty soon we were looking over McMurdo and the sound.

A view of McMurdo from halfway up.

There were two Kiwi’s who hiked up the other side of the hill and came to the top at about the same time we did.  It was pretty funny the one Kiwi commented on how McMurdo looked like a little kids play city with all of the tonka trucks and helicopters.  I thought that was pretty spot on, and it kind of is a playground for big kids.  The other Kiwi was an older guy (late 60's sorry if you don't think of this as old) who was sharing history about the surroundings.  He pointed out the site of the nuclear reactor that the US used to operate at McMurdo before it leaked.  He also told us a little bit of background on Robert Falcon Scott’s party’s memorial up on this hill (shown below).  This memorial commemorates the party led by Scott that died on their way returning from the South Pole in 1912.  It was erected in 1913, and is made of timbers from Scott's ship.  He delved into people’s opinions of Scott, and how a lot of people think that he was a bad leader, but he argued that Scott always thought of his team before himself.  This guy also had a bunch of stories.  He told us of how he and his buddies were the first people to snowboard at the South Pole.  He said they arrived there and everyone was sleeping.  They were bored so the found a sled, cut it up, put some straps for your feet and went snowboarding.   He said it was a half inch of powder with a 10,000ft base.  I told him we could use more Kiwi's in McMurdo to spice things up a bit, because the base, and America in general, is becoming so uptight.  He said everything these days is so focused on saftey and rules that there isn't any room for fun.  I couldn't agree with him more.  He said yeah we hurt some people back in the day with the stupid stuff we did, but they had it coming.  

Scott Party Memorial on Observation Hill

The Kiwi's said goodbye and started heading down part of the hill that had no trail.  It was an extremely steep grade with ice and snow.  They just sat on their butts and scooted down it.  We were left feeling like chumps because this sixty something year old man just hopped off the trail and scooted down on his butt like a little kid, while we took the trail.  After this Mikey and I decided that we should try to be a little bit more adventurous like the Kiwis.  We even have been working on our accents to see if that helps.

View over McMurdo Sound

We also found some other words to live by (or to die by in Scott's case) on the hike.  This is the quote engraved on the memorial.  It is hard to read because it has been weathered so much, but it says, "To strive to seek to find and not to yield."  It is pretty amazing to me the determination, and sense of adventure these early explorers of Antarctica had.  It just blows my mind, and motivates me to be more adventurous in my own life.

We flew out to Lake Hoare today, and it is great to finally be in the field.  I finally found some free time to write about yesterday, but I don't have the energy tonight to stay up and write about today.  Hopefully I can write some tomorrow and post some of the pictures from the helicopter ride over.

Done Washing Bottles

It has been a long week in McMurdo, and we have successfully cleaned over 3800 sample bottles.  I am happy to say that is the end of bottle washing for the season, and if asked to do more I may have to fake an injury.   We have packaged them all up and sent them down to the Helo hanger for shipment to F6 and Lake Hoare.  We also packed up all of our field gear and personal items.  I was pretty excited, I went to check out the gear issue and they had some guitars you could loan.  I found myself a really nice one, which is gonna be a great way to pass the time out in the field.  I wish I had more to talk about, but there hasn't been much personal time to do much of anything other than wash bottles.  I think I am going to go for a run at the "gerbil gym" it may be the last run I go for in a while.

Here is a picture I took from the Crary Library when I found some free time to relax.  This is a view looking to the west over McMurdo Sound.  If you look on the far right of the picture you can see the mountains that define Taylor Valley, where we will be headed on Monday.

Here is a picture of one of the loads we took down to the helo hanger with some of our stuff, and this still isn't everything.  This doesn't even include the important stuff like our food and beer.  It is pretty amazing how well we are supported here to do our work.  There is the helicopter operations crew who flies all of our gear and ourselves to camp (they even deliver our mail, which is the coolest way to receive a letter), the BFC who gets all of our outdoor gear ready, the Crary staff who gets all of our science equipment together, and then all of the awesome staff who do the behind the scenes jobs like cooks and janitors to make life in McMurdo run seamlessly.  I know none of them are reading this blog (other than maybe my aunt Natalie) but a big thanks goes out to all of them.

I also just received news about the tragedy that is unfolding in Paris right now.  Makes my heart sad to hear that, and makes me wonder why so much evil exists in the world.

What exactly am I doing down here?

I realized that for those of you who did not read my blog last year, you may be curious as to why I am down here.  As I try to figure that one out myself, I will do my best to explain the purpose of my trip.

A view of hut point, and part of McMurdo or "town" to give you an idea of what it looks like.

This year I am a member of what is known as the McMurdo LTER (Long Term Ecological Research) project.  This is a interdisciplinary group who's goal is to study the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems of the Dry Valleys over a "long" time period (began monitoring in 1993).  Within this group there are sub-groups who focus on different aspects of each ecosystem.  There are groups that focus on glaciers, lakes, soils, ect., and our group focuses on the glacial runoff streams of the Dry Valleys. Which explains our extra cheesy name the "stream team".  It may come as a surprise to you that there is flowing water in this extremely cold and dry environment.  However, the solar radiation is great enough during the austral summer to melt the glaciers and produce glacial runoff streams which eventually flow into closed basin lakes.  These streams are pretty unique because instead of precipitation being the main control of flow rate (like streams back home) it is the sun that has the most influence on stream flow.  This unique control causes highly variable stream flows from day to day, and even season to season.  Therefore it is important for the scientists studying these ecosystems to have a record and characterization of the flow of these streams.  That is where the stream team comes in.  We measure the flow of the streams, as well as collect water samples to test the nutrients, alkalinity, cations, anions, and dissolved organic carbon.

We gauge the flow on 16 different streams in the Dry Valleys.  Most of the streams are in Taylor Valley (where I will be living and spending most of my time).  The other streams are located in Wright Valley, and Meirs Valley.  To get to the streams we either hike, use ATVs on the lake ice, or fly via helicopter.

The gauging process is the same process used by the USGS which I am sure all of you are very familiar with...  In case you need a refresher on that I will explain it in gory detail (you may want to skip the next two paragraphs). We have gauge boxes at each stream which have instrumentation that measure the depth of the water at a specific location in the stream.  These measurements are taken every minute and recorded on a memory device on site.  This gives us nearly constant measurements of the depth of the stream over time.  To convert this depth to a flow rate (volume of water over time) we need to take manual flow and depth measurements at the stream.  This allows us to create a relationship between the flow and depth of the stream.  With enough flow measurements you can develop what is known as a discharge rating curve (shown below).  The points would be the manual flow and depth measurements and the line is the interpolated discharge rating curve.  As you can see from the image, with an accurate discharge rating curve you can translate any depth measurement to a flow measurement.  We make this translation with all of our stream depth data, which ultimately gives us flow measurements every minute for the duration of the season.

(wikipedia.org)

Our manual flow measurements are taken using a Flowtracker which is a device that measures the velocity of the stream at a certain point.  We take about 20 velocity measurements across the stream channel and with a knowledge of the stream cross sectional area we can convert these measurements to a flow rate.  If you made it this far into this painful explanation congratulations.  This will be the most dense part of the blog, I just thought I would explain the nuances of what I do for the nerds out there.

So our main goal over the coarse of the season will be to take flow measurements and water quality samples at as many streams as we can.  Currently we have been stuck in Crary Lab in McMurdo (shown below) washing bottles for the collection and processing of our samples.  The goal is to fly out to our field camp next Monday.

Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions or if I need to explain anything further.

Our Lab in Crary where we have washed thousands of bottles this week.

Nice view walking into the lab this morning (Crary on the left). Mount Discovery is the peak you can see across the sound

Field Work Prep

As I mentioned in the last post we will be busy prepping for field work this week.  It isn't the most glamorous or exciting part of the job, but it is extremely important that we do it and do it well to ensure a successful and smooth field season.  Yesterday we broke up the monotony of washing bottles with a trip out to discovery hut.  This was a hut built by Robert Falcon Scott's party during the Discovery Expedition of 1901.  This hut is just a short walk from McMurdo Station, but they only open it up to visitors from town every once in a while.  It was in pretty good shape for being such an old building that exists in such harsh conditions, but I know the Kiwi's have been putting effort in to restore the historic huts around Ross Island.  When we first walked in we poked our head around the corner and saw two sheep carcasses hanging.  They were surprisingly not that decomposed for being 100 years old.  I assume, like the mummified seals we come across in the Dry Valleys, that there isn't enough microbial activity in the short summers to break them down much.

Around the next corner was a pile of partially decomposed seals.

There were a bunch of cool old boxes, bottles and cans piled up in the hut.

Not sure what kippered herrings are but they sound tasty.  Haven't seen these in the galley yet.

And some killer long underwear and pants.  Not sure of the brand but it looks like Northface, probably a merino wool polyester blend?

Then outside of the hut on the sea ice there were some Seals rolling around.  They looked pretty content, but I was freezing so this was the best picture I was able to get...

I can't imagine what life would have been like for the first men that lived here.  They must have had a crazy sense of adventure, and a lot of whiskey.  I'll try to keep the tour of the hut in mind if I ever start to complain about F6 (my home in the Dry Valleys).

I wish there was more to talk about today, but things were pretty slow.  We finished up the last of our training, which is a huge relief.  Now we are working on washing sample bottles for the collection and processing of stream water.  We have around 3000 bottles to wash, and it takes quite a bit of time, with different protocol for different bottles.  Monotony would be an understatement, but I guess this is part of the price we pay to get the opportunity to work in such a unique place.  This will all be worth it once we get out of here and into the Dry Valleys, and that can't happen soon enough.

Back in Mac Town!

Hi guys!  So after a couple days of long flights and layovers I finally made it back down to "the ice".  I had a long layover in Sydney so I was able to leave the airport and I took a ferry to Manly Beach.  It would have been nicer if it wasn't cold and rainy, but the fact that it was made for a pretty wild ferry ride.  There were large swells out in the harbor, and the boat got to rocking pretty good making the bumpy ride worth the fare.

We also had an afternoon in Christchurch to roam around.  My teammates and I headed down to Sumner which was a great little beach town on the Southern edge of Christchurch.  A teammate and I went swimming despite the fact that it was only about 60 degrees outside with frigid water.  I figured it would be the last chance I'd have for a while to play in the surf.

We had to check into our "ice flight" at 5:30 so I went to bed pretty early.  I was pleasantly surprised in the morning when I saw the plane we were about to board.  This year I had the pleasure of flying down on a C-17.  Which is a huge jet (shown below) instead of the monster warehouse with propellers that is a C-130.  This jet is able to make it from Christchurch to McMurdo in about five hours as opposed to 8.

It is strange, as I walk around McMurdo it feels like I have only been gone for a week or two.  Not much has changed over the winter here, and I am already running into some familiar faces around town which is fun.  Yesterday we had the introductory briefing, we got settled into our rooms, we enjoyed the early season fresh food options at the galley, and went over some logistics for the week ahead of us.  Today was more training and briefings.  It is amazing how much information they throw at you right when you show up.  After dinner we finally had some free time, so we headed down to what is know as the "ob tube" for observation tube.  It is a 20ft tall steel tube that has been lowered into a hole in the sea ice of the sound.  The bottom of the tube has windows so you can climb down a ladder and take a look at the sea life below the ice.  Unfortunately the pictures I tried to take down there turned out terribly, but it was pretty spectacular.  The bottom of the sea ice was insane looking I never knew how crystallized and irregular the bottom of the ice was,  There were also huge schools of little fish swimming around and these mini jelly fish looking things.  I really wish I could have spent more time down there, but there were a bunch of people waiting and it was about 5 degrees F and windy.

This week we are going to need to track down all of the gear that has been issued to us and get it ready for the field season.  We also need to wash the thousands of bottles that we will use for the water sample collection and processing which will be a real treat.  Most importantly this week we will be required to attend the many safety training sessions to make us aware of all of the fun we shouldn't be having down here.

Hope all is well with everyone back home!

Stuck In McMurdo Again

I was supposed to get on a flight this morning northbound to Christchurch, but as I have learned all too well this season, sometimes Antarctica has different plans for you.  Needless to say,  I now have some free time to kill in McMurdo.  Unfortunately for me, the vessel is supposed to get into town today.  The vessel is the cargo ship that brings in the majority of supplies to McMurdo every year, and takes out the waste.  This is a rough time to be stuck in town because all of the stores are closed, the bars are closed, and a lot of roads are closed down.

Since I have been back in town I have been working hard to get all of my samples processed before I left.  I took a bunch of sediment samples from Crescent Stream and these had to be processed before I left.  I dried the samples for 24 hours in an oven to remove all moisture from the pores of the soil, then I sieved each sample, and recorded the resulting grain size distribution.  This data helps me characterize what the surface, and subsurface of the stream bed is made out of.  This took a bunch of time, just because the sieving process is so tedious.  All of the work, on top of trying to keep up with saying goodbye (having a few beverages) with all of my new-found friends I have exhausted myself pretty well.  It would have been nice to know that I wasn't going to be flying today, so that I could have spread the work out more evenly, but I guess I will just enjoy my free time.

On Friday the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel was offering tours of the ship.  This was awesome!  There were so many interesting tools and resources they had available it was really unbelievable.  I apologize, I forgot to bring my camera...

Saturday night I walked out to hut point which is a short walk from my dorm room.  At the time I thought it would be my last night to enjoy this view.  It was quite and really peaceful out there alone.  I saw a lonely penguin just standing there.  I also could see the breath from whales that were breathing out in the channel that the ice breaker had cut.

The little black dot in the photo below is the penguin.

Last night there was a Sunday Science lecture that was pretty amazing.  This lecture was about the WISSARD project which stands for the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling.  This is a huge project that is focused on drilling to remote bodies of water buried under the ice to investigate the melting rates of Antarctica's Ice Sheets, among other things.  In the past they drilled to lake Whillans, a buried sub-glacial lake, and found a microbial community in this water.  This year they drilled to an area where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the continent.  This column was 750 m of ice with 10 m of sea water and then ocean floor below.  This location was located 530 miles from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, so they weren't quite sure what they would find there in terms of life.  Due the fact that this area is so far from any possible photosynthesis for primary production, they expected to find a small microbial community.  Instead they were amazed at what they found.  They found fish, small arthopods, and jelly fish to name a few things.  They were blown away by what they saw on the camera they dropped down the hole.  These findings are so recent (couple of days old), and the team is made up of glaciologists and geologists, so they have no idea if these are new species or not.  They showed the reaction of the team sitting in the room watching the camera when they saw the first fish.  It was pretty cool.  To be in McMurdo, and to see the scientists reporting on these very cool brand spanking new discoveries was pretty special.  The whole community was there to see this, and you could feel there was a sense of pride not just by the scientists who worked on this project but with the cooks, the janitors, the pilots, and all of the support staff who were able to see their hard work pay off by witnessing some amazing new discoveries.  

Here is a link to a somewhat misleading article by Scientific American about the findings here.  The author makes it seem as if this part of the sea is completely sealed off from the ocean.  This is not the case, it is in complete connectivity with the ocean, it is just 530 miles from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, which makes it very remote in terms of distance from an energy source (the sun).  But it has some good pictures of what they found.