Seal Watch

We STILL can't get to our field sites. Mars Oasis is too cloudy for the plane to  land. Maybe tomorrow!

Instead, today I helped the marine biologists. There are many marine biologists at Rothera Station that study the invertebrates living on the bottom of the ocean. To do their research, they have to scuba dive in the bay that borders the research station. The cold water is their first danger, so they wear protective suits. There are a couple other dangers they must avoid, which are leopard seals and orcas (killer whales). Humans in dive suits underwater can easily be mistaken for a seal, penguin, or other tasty morsel that these animals eat. Because they have attacked humans before, the marine biologists can't dive if one is in the area

Safety rules require that someone be on what we call "seal watch". That person scans the area for leopard seals and orcas for 30 minutes before the diver gets in the water, and also while they're diving. If one is seen, the diver must immediately leave the water and cannot go back in for four hours after the animal was last seen. There's nothing we can do to remove the animal if one is seen, so the divers have to wait until they decide to leave, which could be days!

The pier at Rothera Station

So this morning I was on Seal Watch for the marine biologists. I stood at the end of the pier and watched the bay for wildlife with a pair of binoculars. It's pretty nice job, since it was sunny, with no wind, and relatively warm! I didn't see any seals or whales at all, so the marine biologist was able to complete her work.

Weather Delay

Well, our flight was delayed due to bad weather at the field site. Because the plane has to land on a glacier, rather than a proper runway, the weather needs to be perfect. Since we're hanging out around Rothera Station for yet another day, I have more time to tell you about where we're going.

Over the two years of the project, we will be sampling along a "latitudinal gradient". That means that we'll be taking soil samples at sites at regular distances along the length of the entire Antarctic Peninsula. It gets colder as you move farther south in latitude, so we'll be able to look at how the change in temperature influences the microbes and invertebrates living in the soil. This week's trip will take us to the most southern sites along the gradient.

Right now we're at Rothera Station. That's the northern-most yellow star on this map, farthest to the left. (Remember that in Antarctica, every direction away from the South Pole is north, so moving to the left is still moving north, not west!) Tomorrow, we are heading to some sites much farther south of Rothera. Our first stop will be at the middle star to a place called Mars Oasis on Alexander Island. Mars Oasis is an area that is not covered by ice, so we will be able to take samples from an extensive landscape of bare soil. Many species of moss and lichen grow there, which is where we'll be targeting our sampling.

From there, we'll fly to Fossil Bluff, which is just a bit north of Mars Oasis on the same island. (So, pretty much under the same yellow star as Mars Oasis.) Fossil Bluff is a bit of a transfer station for the British Antarctic Survey, and there's a permanent camp there. (You can see a picture of it here.) We'll stop there to switch to the plane that will take us to our southern site. (It would be silly to fly us all the way back to Rothera just to turn around and come back south again.) Of course while we're there, we'll collect soil samples, because we always make the most of our time on the ground, no matter where we are!

From Fossil Bluff, we'll be off to a Sky Blu, marked by the southern yellow star. Sky Blu is on the mainland of the Peninsula and covered by the ice sheet. (You can see a picture of it here.) It's is also mainly a transfer station for getting planes further into the continent, but there are nunataks there that we will sample. (Nunataks are where mountain tops poke out above the ice sheet.) These nunataks at Sky Blu will serve as our southern-most sampling point for the whole project. It's much further south than Rothera, so it will be much colder. I hear from people returning from Sky Blu that it's about -15°C there right now, in the middle of summer!

Hopefully we'll be leaving for this journey tomorrow, but it all depends on the weather at Mars Oasis.

Antarctica Day

Happy Antarctica Day!

Antarctica Day is celebrated in honor of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty on December 1, 1959. Today is the 55th anniversary of its signing!

The 50 countries that have signed the Antarctic Treaty agree that Antarctica should be preserved for peaceful and scientific purposes. The Treaty specifies that there be no military presence (except in helping transport people and supplies), no nuclear activity (so no nuclear energy or weapons), and that the continent be open for international scientific exploration and cooperation. It's the reason that so much great science can take place in Antarctica, which allows me to be here!

Here is how we celebrated its 55th anniversary at Rothera Station:

I'm holding the left "5"

We are scheduled to leave for the field tomorrow, and we'll be spending about a week in remote field camps to collect soil samples. I won't have any internet over that period, so it'll be a while before you hear from me again (assuming the weather cooperates and we get to leave on schedule).

We finally made it into the field today! The winds from the storm we had over the past couple of days blew the sea ice away from the docking area, so we could get a boat out to one of the islands we want to sample.

The islands we want to sample are just south of Rothera Station in Marguerite Bay. The boat gets loaded up with our gear, and then lowered into the water with a crane. Water this cold is dangerous, so we wear “boat suits” that are waterproof and well-insulated, with built-in flotation (in case we fall out). We wear self-inflating life jackets over top of that. It keeps us safe, but it is definitely very bulky!

We got to Anchorage Island, but as we suspected, the storm had dropped too much snow on the ground to find the soil we want to sample! We thought this would be the case, but the boat was already going to Anchorage, so we tagged along to use the opportunity to scope out potential sites. We were able to find some sites with soil, moss, and grass that we will be able to revisit later in the season once the snow has melted more. Here’s what it looks like on snow-covered Anchorage Island. That’s Uffe in front of me, and to the left you can see our boat way down below tied to anchors in the ice. (If you look VERY closely, you can just barely see the red “apple” hut that serves as an emergency shelter, above Uffe’s head and to the left, between the hills.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am at a British research station, so Thanksgiving is not a celebrated holiday. I hope you had a wonderful time with family and/or friends. Here’s what I was greeted with this fine Thanksgiving morning: A gale blowing snow around in 30-40 knot winds!

The bad news is that it was a very unpleasant day for walking between my dorm, the cafeteria, and the lab.

The good news is that it hopefully pushed out that sea ice that was blocking our way to the islands, so once the weather clears, we should hopefully be able to finally get out and sample!

Crevasses

Our field work this year will take us out onto glaciers. Even though we study soil, we’ll have to cross glaciers and ice to get to the locations we want to sample.

One of the dangers associated with walking on ice is that we could fall into a crevasse. Crevasses are cracks that form in large chunks of ice (like glaciers and ice sheets). They can be narrow or wide. Sometimes you can hop across it, but sometimes they can be too wide to get across. They can be shallow (ankle or knee depth) or very deep (100 feet deep or more).

Crevasses aren’t always visible from the surface, because they can be covered with a thin ceiling of ice and snow on top, making it difficult to spot. However, that “ice bridge” covering the ceiling of a crevasse may not be strong enough to hold the weight of a human, particularly one wearing heavy clothing and a backpack full of gear and samples!

People have died from falling into deep crevasses. Typically, we try our absolute best to avoid going into them! However, they have secured one crevasse and we are allowed to visit it. We use a lot of safety gear to make sure we don’t fall further into the crevasse, should it become unstable. It’s absolutely amazing inside!

 It’s like being in a cave made of ice, with icicles instead of stalactites. The only light is what can filter through the snow above our heads, so everything is very blue.

The picture below shows the tiny hole we had to squeeze through in order to get access to the expansive cave. You can see how easy it might be to not realize that a vast, deep cave is down there. You could easily step on it and fall into it! It was fun going into a crevasse under my own control with the necessary safety gear, but we certainly don’t want to surprise ourselves by falling into one while we’re out sampling.

To avoid these dangers in the field, we follow very strict safety protocols. Yesterday, we were trained on how to properly keep our team safe. We will walk roped together, carrying all of the appropriate gear that will be necessary to save someone from a crevasse should the worst happen. We had to practice all of these techniques during our training. Here’s Uffe practicing the method for raising yourself out of a crevasse if you fall in. (Of course, he’s doing it completely unharmed in a warm, dry building, which is very different from how it would feel if this were a real situation!)

We are still waiting for the sea ice to blow out so that we can start sampling. Bad weather is predicted to roll in, so it might be next week before we can go.

It looks like the first places we'll be able to sample are some of the islands near Rothera, which will be accessed from a small boat. Unfortunately, sea ice is blocking the dock we would be leaving from, so we have to wait for it to blow out before we can do anything! In this photo, you can see some of the islands in the distance, towards the left, and the remaining ice in our way. We're hoping it'll move on in the next couple of days, so that we can get out. Hopefully, then, the snow will also have melted enough to expose the soil we want to sample!

While the sea ice is blocking our exit, it certainly does make for nice scenery! The seal in the photo below certainly doesn't mind, either.