Snow School

Yesterday I went to Snow School. This is a camping trip where we learn survival skills to help us when we're out in the field. Antarctica is very windy and it's hard to predict when a storm might come, so we always have to be prepared to be caught in bad weather.

Our group was driven out to the McMurdo Ice Shelf. This is an incredibly thick piece of floating ice, several hundred meters thick, that forms where the glacier breaks off from land and flows into the sea. An ice shelf is different from sea ice, because sea ice is made of frozen seawater and melts when the temperature warms, but ice sheets are permanent because they are made of glaciers (so not salty). In the picture below, the mountains are on land. The jagged edges of the mountains show where the glacier breaks, and the flat ice is the McMurdo Ice Shelf, where we were camping.
On Antarctica, roads are marked by flags. Green and red flags show where it is safe to travel, and black flags show where there is danger (but only the danger that has been mapped! There are many dangerous areas that are not flagged). The flags in the picture above show a road on the McMurdo Ice Sheet leading to the airport. No pavement, yellow lines, or street signs here!

We were driven out on these roads by huge trucks called Delta's. The Delta's big tires can safely cross the traverse from land to ice and prevents it from falling into cracks.

At our camping site, we built our own structures to sleep in. First, we put up a special type of tent called Scott Tents, which are tall and pyramid-shaped. These are especially designed to withstand high winds (up to 80 mph). This is necessary, since Antarctica is the windiest of all the continents. We didn't want our whole camp to be blown away and be left homeless all night! So, we built a wall of snow connecting the Scott Tents. We did this by cutting squares of snow from the top of the ice shelf and stacking them into a wall (just like you do with Legos!). The Scott Tents, connected by the snow wall, will help protect the rest of the camp from the wind.

Inside the wall, we also put up regular dome tents, like what you and your family may use when you go camping. However, it's hard to anchor tents to the ground in soft snow, so we had to dig trenches into the ground to bury our tent stakes (these buried anchors are called "dead men").
We also learned to build structures out of snow, in case we get stuck out in the weather with no camping gear. We built a snow cave by piling up all of our duffle bags, then covering them in snow. The snow gets packed down with shovels, then left to sit in the sun and refreeze. After a while, you dig a tunnel to pull out all of the bags, and an open cave remains. It's sort of like an igloo, but messier.We also dug snow trenches that you can sleep inside of. They are small (just the size of one person) and not very warm, but protected from the wind.

Overall, the first day of snow school involved a whole lot of shoveling and sawing! We camped out that evening in the structures we built, and were able to stay very warm even though the temperature outside was only about 20 degrees Fahrenheit. We spent the next day (today) learning other useful survival skills, like how to set up portable VHF radios. We were able to call and talk to people at the South Pole with those radios! We also pretended to be caught in a white-out (when it's snowing so hard you can't see or hear) by placing buckets over our heads. With our heads covered, we had to try to locate one of our team members who was pretending to be lost in the snow.

Tomorrow is our last day to prepare ourselves for our field work. Friday morning we'll leave for Taylor Valley, where we will spend the next week collecting samples for our research!

Here are some pictures from the area around McMurdo:In the background you see Mt. Erebus , the most active volcano on Antarctica. You can see the steam coming out of the top. However, the lava is not very thick, so it is not likely to clog and cause an eruption.

A seal warms itself in the sun on the ice covering the Ross Sea. Since the temperature hasn't been very cold, the ice is starting to melt. This happens every summer when the temperatures get warmer. Just imagine a summer where the temperature is just barely above freezing! The roads that cross the ice have been closed, since the ice is no longer thick enough to carry the weight of a truck or airplane.

These shacks get pulled onto the ice, so that the scientists studying the sea underneath can stay warm.

On the Ice

We have arrived on Antarctica!

Friday morning we left New Zealand on a US Air Force C-17 airplane (crewed by the awesome 62d Airlift Wing from McChord Air Force Base). In the picture on the left, Ross is stretching his legs during the 5 hour flight.

We were allowed to come into the cockpit during the flight, which gave us a great view of the ocean, sea ice, and the Antarctic continent as we approached.

After we landed, we traveled to our new home: McMurdo Station. We have spent the past day and a half setting up our lab and preparing for our field work. We have machines to set up, supplies to collectto wash, chemical solutions to make, and camping gear to collect before we can begin our research.


So far the weather has been great! It is slightly below freezing (about 30 degrees Fahrenheit) but overall much warmer than Dartmouth was when we left! Since we're in the Antarctic circle, the sun never sets and there are 24 hours of daylight. The earth is tilted, so as the Earth revolves around the sun (which takes one year), certain parts of the Earth are closer to the sun at different times of the year. This is why we get different seasons of warm and cold temperatures during the year. Right now, the southern hemisphere is closer to the sun than the northern hemisphere. That makes it summer here, but winter for the northern hemisphere. Antarctica is at the tip of the southern hemisphere, so always facing the sun during this time of the year. In six months, the Earth will be on the other side of the sun and it will be winter on Antarctica, with 24 hours of darkness (which it will be summer for us in the US!).

Below are a couple of pictures from areas nearby our base. Elizabeth is walking around a pond. She's the small red dot on the other side of the pond. She was very excited, because she found some algae and bacteria growing on the rocks alongside the stream! The ball in the mountain behind her houses a very large satellite dish that tracks the US space shuttles. In the second picture, I am squatting in front of the Ross Sea (which is frozen). On the far side of the Ross Sea is the Royal Society Range of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. We will be doing most of our research in the valleys of this mountain range. The mountains appear fairly close, but they are actually about 60-70 miles or so away from me. That means it would take an entire hour for me to drive across if I could go as fast as a car on the highway in the U.S. Since there are very few people or man-made objects here, there aren't very many things to help you judge the size and distance of things.

Today we were outfitted with all of the gear we need to wear while on Antarctica. The board in the top picture shows the variety of clothes they give us: everything from long underwear and socks to coats and hats. That's me to the left trying on all of the clothes I was given. Underneath that big red parka and the windpants, I am wearing 2 pairs of long underwear, fleece pants, a long undershirt, and a fleece jacket. I was very toasty warm!

Tomorrow we are scheduled to fly to Antarctica. Before leaving New Zealand, we stopped by the statue of Robert F. Scott, the explorer who traveled to Antarctica several times in the early 1900's and led the British team on the race to be the first people to reach the South Pole in 1912. The Norwegian team beat Scott to the South Pole by a month, and the entire British group of explorers died on the return journey. That ended Scott's very great and famous career as an explorer! The statue we visited was sculpted by Scott's wife and placed in Christchurch in his honor. Becky (me), Mike, and Ross are in the picture at the statue. On Antarctica, the New Zealand research station is named after him (Scott Base), and the hut built by his team for the expedition to the South Pole still stands.

Journey to Antarctica

Our group (Ross, Mike, Elizabeth, and Becky) left Dartmouth very early Monday morning. The bad weather made us late to the airport and we almost missed our flight! We have now arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand late Wednesday morning. Because of the time zone difference, we traveled for almost 36 hours (1.5 days) but arrived in New Zealand over two days later! New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere, like Antarctica, so it is summer here. When we left Dartmouth, it was snowing and sleeting, and about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, two days later in New Zealand, it is 70 degrees and the flowers are blooming!

While in New Zealand, we will get outfitted with all of the warm clothing we will need for Antarctica. Then, very early Friday morning (which will be late Thursday morning for most of the people reading this blog), we will board a plane to take us to Antarctica. In the meantime, I think I will enjoy the warm weather while I can!

In Christchurch, we went to the Canterbury Museum, which teaches about the natural history and human heritage of New Zealand. There is a whole section about Antarctica and the explorers that have been going to Antarctica since the early 1800's. It's amazing that people have been exploring and studying Antarctica for 200 years! People were going to Antarctica before there were great inventions like fleece and portable power generators! We saw some of the gear and huts used by explorers such as Roald Amundsen (who led the first group to reach the South Pole in 1912), Robert F. Scott (who was racing Amundsen to the South Pole, but lost and died on the way back), and my hero Sir Edmund Hillary (who has explored a lot of really neat places besides Antarctica, including Mt. Everest).

Meet your Researchers

Our group leaves for Antarctica on December 10, 2007. That's less than a month away! Before we go, I need to tell you a little bit more about what we do down there.

First of all, when you're on the continent of Antarctica, it's referred to as being on the "ice." However, the area we study is a polar desert called the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Just like deserts in the U.S., there's very little precipitation, so there's actually bare soil, not just ice and snow! The white dot on the map shows where McMurdo is located.

Our research is in the field of soil biogeochemistry, which is just a big word that means we study the way elements move in the soil. We are especially interested in carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, since these three elements are so important for all forms of life. We also study the living organisms in the Dry Valleys. All living things in the Dry Valleys are microscopic (except for the scientists, of course). While other areas of Antarctica have penguins and seals, the Dry Valleys' largest organism is a nematode. A predatory nematode is the top of our foodchain- the equivalent to a lion in the Serengeti!

There are three soil scientists going to Antarctica from Dartmouth. The leader is Dr. Ross Virginia, a professor at Dartmouth who has been going to Antarctica for many years. Also on the team are myself (Becky) and Elizabeth. The fourth member of our team is Mike, from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. While on the ice, we work very closely with another group of scientists from Colorado State University. They are led by Dr. Diana Wall, and include Breana, Ed, and Byron (who's actually from Brigham Young University). Dr. Wall's group specializes in the nematodes (they have a special nematode blog), and together the eight of us study the nutrients and biology of the McMurdo Dry Valley soils.

I'll keep you updated with photos and stories of our adventures in research. Feel free to email me questions, and I'll answer them as best I can!

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for the Dartmouth group of soil scientists working in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica! I am your faithful blogger, Dr. Becky. I'll be keeping you updated with our adventures as we conduct our research this year on Antarctica.