Andrill

I toured the Andrill Lab in the Crary Science Building this evening. ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) is a multinational collaboration comprised of more than 200 scientists, students, and educators from five nations (Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) to recover stratigraphic records from the Antarctic margin. The chief objective is to drill back in time to recover a history of paleoenvironmental changes that will guide our understanding of how fast, how large, and how frequent were glacial and interglacial changes in the Antarctica region. Future scenarios of global warming require guidance and constraint from past history that will reveal potential timing frequency and site of future changes. (http://www.andrill.org/)
Anrill is a 30 million drilling project. Last year, the drilling site was on the permanent Ice shelf, about 5k from Scott Base, near Williams airfield. They drilled through the Ross Sea Ice Shelf (80 meters), the Ross Sea (800 meters), and the floorbed (1200 meters). That was the deepest anyone has ever drilled in Antarctica. The sediment they recoved was up to 10 milion years old.

This year, they are drilling on the sea ice, about 5k from open water. The site on which they are drilling will be open ocean in a month or so. Within a couple weeks, Andrill will be forced to pack up their drill and head home. Tonight, the drillers reached 1000 meters beneath the sea bed, and recovered core samples aged around 19 million years.
The drillers recover the rock in three meter cylindrical sections, about 2 inches in diameter. The rock is shipped from the drilling site, every night via helicopter, to McMurdo Station, where analysis begins. The samples are promptly sliced in half: half is archived and half is analyzed. Ater the rock is split and a high resolution photograph is taken, Sedimentologists, Geochemists, Micropaleontologists, and Paleomagnetitists all jockey to slice and dice the samples. Much of the record taking and analysis is done on station by scientists who literally work round the clock, without a day off (not even for Turkey day), for the two-three months they reside here. The Rock cores will all be packaged and shipped back to civilization for further analysis. Thats where I fit in to the Andrill project: I rudely and lazily toss their samples (which cost aproximately $15,000 per meter) onto an air force pallet, crush it down with straps, and rattle it around on a forklift before loading it onto a loud and bumpy C-130 military aircraft.
But I digress.
The tour was excellent. We touched rock that was 17 milion years old.
http://www.andrill.org/iceberg/photos/index.html

Slithering Snow

When the wind really blows, the ice shelf becomes a sea of slithering snow. Its a mesmerizing a disorientating experience, as the ground flows and slithers and bends below your feet.

Links

Two guys on my cargo team also have blogs:

http://www.ninerdedhed.blogspot.com/ - check out the video in the Wednesday, November 07, 2007 entry entitled 'THIS IS ANTARCTICA!!!'. It documents the storm that trapped us at the ice runway for an entire night

http://freezerburningman.blogspot.com/ - you just might find some photos of old #1

Freaky people make the beauty of the world

One of the more outrageous events of the season is Halloween Party. Everything that happens in McMurdo is made all the more novel by the fact that afterwards, you can say, "in Antarctica". For instance, "I saw a penguin, in Antarctica" or "I skied on the sea ice, in Antarctica". The novelty of the settings adds excitement and novelty to everything that happens on the ice.
The annual Halloween party is no exception. The outrageous costumes, the fervent dance party, and the intensive drinking, framed to the background of a quonset in Antarctica. The absurdity of the contrast, the beauty of an invigorated and creative community thriving in the driest, coldest, most desolate place on Earth.
Its an expression of humanity, its an expression of beauty, where you would least expect it.

This buildnig is a quonset hut - a half-cylinder tin building

Ben - McMurdo's DJ

I've learned a valuable lesson on the ice: No party is complete without a robot

This costume beat me out for 'most creative'

Can you guess what I am?

Conditional Skiing

Finally got out for a nice ski - around Cape Armitage towards Scott Base. Its been too cold or stormy to do much recreating for the past couple weeks. But cabin fever forced us out into the icy cold, despite condition 2 winds.

Condition Fun

Weather has been unusually wicked this year. Wind chills between -30 and -55 F, storm after storm blowing through.

As a result, very few planes have come and gone, and the beakers are getting antsy. Projects are a month into the summer season and without their equipement or personnel. These are multi-million dollar weather delays. And management is getting hammered from above to get things moving.

Today they sent us out to the airstrip to load up the planes in a condition 2 storm. Weather in McMurdo is classified as condition 1, condition 2, or condition 3.

Condition THREE is observed when all of the following are true:

Wind speed is less than o equal to 48 knots, and

Visibility is greater than 1/4 mile, and

Windchill temperature is greater than -75 degrees F.

Condition TWO is observed when any one of the following is true:

Wind speed is greater than 48 knots but less than or equal to 55 knots, or

Visibility is greater than 100 feet but less than or equal to 1/4 mile, or

Windchill temperature is greater than -100 degrees F but less than or equal to -75 defrees F

Condition ONE is observed when any one of the following is true:

Wind speed is greater than 55 knots, or

Visiblity is less than or equal to 100 feet, or

Windchill temperature is less than or equal to -100 degrees F.

I've never been in a condition one storm . . . until today. After we loaded the planes, conditions deteriorated and condition 1 was announced over the radios. We've been stranded in the strip shack for over an hour now, biding our time while the shack rumbles and shakes.

Pictures to come soon!

Discussion

Here's my update, my lovers.
Its pretty grand, on a grand scale, in grandiose terms.
The job is completely kosher - unloading hundred million dollar aircraft with thirty real old loaders. If you sneeze, you're liable to send a fork straight through the hull.
But that's just the rock star aspect of the job. Mostly we just pick pallets up and move them. And then rebuild them. And then move them again. And then load them on an airplane. Then the flight destination changes and we move them on a different plane. Then the flight is cancelled and we move the pallet again. Then we rebuild the the pallet for a different type of aircraft. Then the priority of the cargo changes, so we move it to storage. Then when we try to find it later, its lost, so we rebuild it. Despite a cargo force of over 25 handlers, nothing actually ever arrives or leaves the continent. We just spend the entire day moving it back and forth. At first its frustrating . . . but then you look at the mountains and take the time for a "wow" moment, and all is well with the world.

When I walked off the plane last year, I got the distinct and exhilarating feeling that I was experiencing a completely novel, alien, and beautiful place. Four months in the dish pit wiped that experience from memory, but it has returned in full force this year.
At any moment, I can take a look up, and be in awe. That's a pretty nice environment to work in.
But its so damn cold, especially working nights at the airstrip, where there is no protection from the wind. An un-gloved hand or unprotected nose will go numb in thirty seconds. Staying protected while working requires constant attention. And staying warm requires about 4000 calories per day.
In most ways, I'm much happier than I was last year. I'm actually in Antarctica this time around, and I've returned to a community familiar to me. But my bitterness over the galley has only strengthened. Now that I've gotten out, now that I have experienced life on the outside, I'm all the more angry about the working conditions in the kitchen. Nowhere else on station are employees treated with such disrespect, cynicism, and exploitation. Its outrageous, its unfair, and there's no reason for it.
On the lighter side, first penguin sighting was a couple days ago. The Ice shelf is not very far out this year (which means more wildlife) . . . we're hoping for a return to the good 'ol McMurdo days of open ocean!
Working nights is going to get old quick. There's just not much to do when you have a night off. After working outside so much, I'm less inclined to ski and hike. But I do have my radio show (Mr Happy-pants), which can take me through the most uneventful of nights. And there is a small but tight knit community of night-workers, who find ways to drink the night away.
Alright . . . thats the update. Mostly I'm floating . . . except during the wee-hours of a boring night.
PS Ten gallons of beer will be ready in 24 hours - mega props to my bro, the master behind the curtain

Happy Travels

Its so damn cold, even the emperors are packing up

Karma

I just sent an email to Jerry, bitching about the wind chills remaining steady in the -30's all week.

The conditions tonight can only be decribed as demonic:

Not much hope staying warm . . . basically just work until you lose feeling in your fingers, then warm up, then repeat. It's a successful day when you don't get frostnip.



But it sure is puuuuuurrrrrrrty outside!



Twin Otter Airplane behind me. Also Mount Erebus.