Greetings from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet!

Loading up on the LC-130 airplane

Greetings from WAIS Divide everyone.  We finally made it in last week and got some internet up and running.  Here are a few highlights from the first week.

I set up my tent right on the snow, and this year I even got a cot to put my sleeping bag on.  It get's pretty cold at night, but our bags are rated for -50 degrees so I stay toasty warm.  Another thing that is common down here, is to fill up a water bottle with some hot water and to sleep with it.  As you can see, I have plenty of room to move around and get changed in the morning.

This is one of the welcoming signs here at WAIS Divide.  You can see most of the camp buildings behind me.  Just in front of me is the skiway where the planes land.

One of the nice things about life at WAIS Divide, is that we have a 4 star chef cooking for us!  We had an enormous thanksgiving dinner and even had 7 different pies!

One of the electricians, J.P. built an igloo all by himself by cutting out blocks of snow with a handsaw.

Once we started working in the ice core drilling arch, we boxed up ice cores from last season into insulated containters and put them on pallets for shipment.  So far, we have already shipped over 500 ice cores from last season.

Here is a veiw of some of the camp buildings.  Pictured here are a communications building, a science building, the galley (where we eat), and the wash module (where we brush our teeth and shower)

One of the other scientists, Bess, had her birthday down here and the cooks made her two huge birthday cakes!

Another science group came through WAIS Divide that will be leaving tomorrow.  They are doing seismic studies on the ice sheet.  This means that they drill small holes and ignite small explosives down the holes.  They then record how long it takes for the shockwaves from those explosives to go through the ice sheet.  This tells them how thick it is.  In this pic, they are testing their small drill outside of camp.

Here is rebecca getting ready to head out of camp on her ski-doo

Here are two more scientists ready to head out of town, with a nice shot of the Basler plane parked behind them.

Both the basler and an LC-130 parked on the skiway. WAIS International
airport!

It's Penguin Time!

Meet Mr. Adelie Penguin

Live Footage!

Greetings everyone from the icy shores of Cape Royds here in Antarctica.  Yesterday we had the great pleasure of being invited on a trip from McMurdo up to Cape Royds where there is an Adelie Penguin rookery (colony).

First, let me show you where we went.  The main town of McMurdo Station, while in Antarctica, is actually located on small island off of the mainland continent.  It is, in a sense, connected to that mainland by the ice.  Take a look:

Here's an overall map of Antarctica (click to enlarge)

Ross Island is located at the end of the Ross Ice Shelf, and across from the Transantarctic Mountains.

Zooming in on Ross Island, this is what it looks like, and where we drove to get up to Cape Royds to see the penguins:

Ross Island (click to enlarge)

You'll see on the map both McMurdo Station and Cape Royds.  To get to Cape Royds, we drove snowmobiles and a large snow vehicle called a Pisten-Bully on top of the frozen sea ice (along the red line path in the picture above).

SO...Here's a quick recap of the day!

First we headed out, and I rode on a sled being towed by a snowmobile

Followed by another snowmobile and the Pisten-Bully

Then.....one of our snowmobiles brokedown and we had to leave it.  (We picked it up later on the way back)

First stop:  Cape Evans and Scott's "Terra Nova" Hut.  In 1910 British Explorer Robert Falcon Scott set out on his Terra Nova Expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole.  On January 17th, 1912 when his expedition party finally reached the the pole, they realized that their rival, Norwegian Roald Amundsen, had beaten them by 33 days, claiming the honor for Norway.  The inside of the hut has been preserved and left untouched to look exactly as it did in 1912.

Terra Nova Hut

Inside the hut

Photo of Scott's party from 1912, taken at the South Pole

Next Stop:  Barne Glacier Front!

After leaving Cape Evans, we passed by the calving front of Barnes Glacier and took some really nice photographs.  The calving front of a glacier is its front end, or "terminus" where giant chunks of ice can break off and fall away.  You don't want to be too close when that happens!

Enormous Glacier Front (nearly 100 feet tall)

The small black dot at the bottom is actually an enormous Weddell Seal

This should give you an idea of the scale.

Next Stop: Cape Royds and Shackleton's Hut

We made it up to Cape Royds and took the short walk over to another historical Hut:  Ernest Shackleton's Hut.  Between 1907 and 1909, Shackleton led a small party from Cape Royds on an attempt to reach the South Pole.  This expedition, called the Nimrod Expedition, came up short and Shackleton's party never made it to the pole.  They did however make it within 97 miles which was the farthest south anyone had been at the time. Of course 3 years later, both Amundsen and Scott's expeditions broke that record by making it to the pole.

Shackleton's "Nimrod Expedition" Hut

Shackleton's Party making it to the "farthest south"

point just 97 miles from the South Pole in 1909

Final Stop: Cape Royds Penguin Rookery!

Right across from Shackleton's Hut was the Penguin rookery.  There were hundreds of Adelie penguins all hanging out in groups.  There are 38 colonies of Adelie penguins around Antarctica and there are over 5 million Adelies around Ross Island alone!

Lots of Penguins!

More Penguins!

Taking a stroll

Hundreds more!

Two penguins showing off

ADELIE PENGUIN VIDEOS

FROM CAPE ROYDS TRIP!

(Click to Play)

This is as close as I was allowed to get to the penguins

The open water was just on the other side of

Cape Royds.  It's a good thing we parked our

Snowmobile and Pisten-Bully on the other side!

There were also some Skua birds nearby.  Skuas are

basically very large brown seagulls.  They are not afraid

of people, and will actually try to steal food from you.

We also saw a mother Weddell Seal and her pup on the

Return trip back to McMurdo.

The Weddell Seal can weigh up to 1000 pounds and lives farther south than any other mammal on Earth!

Here's another photo I took of a Weddell Seal

Antarctic Sea Critters!

Paddington hanging out with a Sea Anemone

Today we went down to the "Touch Tank" here in the Antarctic Science Facility.  There are several sea creatures on display in this tank that you are allowed to photograph and even touch with your fingers! (if you can stand the icy cold water on your hands)

There's quite a unique mix of interesting animals.  Here are a few that we saw:

Sea Star or "Star Fish" (Odontaster Validus)

Some info about the Sea Star:

-  O. Validus is the most abundant seastar in the shallow shelf waters of Antarctica

-  It is slow growing.  Well-fed individuals need about nine years to reach about thirty grams

-  They can live up to 100 years!

-  Eats plant matter and small crustaceans (It's an omnivore)

Sea Spider (Colossendeis)

Some info about the Sea Spider:

-  They are the largest sea spider with some having leg spans as wide as fifty centimeters.

-  They are exlusively marine and mostly bottom dwellers

-  Adult sea spiders suck the juices from soft-bodied invertebrates (like jellyfish or anemones) to feed.

Antarctic Isopod (Glyptonotus Antarcticus)

Some info about the Antarctic Isopod:

-  Their size can be up to twenty centimeters in length

-  Eats seastars, mollusks, sea urchins and a whole mess of other small sea creatures.

-  Is nocturnal

Nudibranch "Sea Slug" (Tritonia Challengeriana)

Some info about the Sea Slug:

-  They are shell-less mollusks

-  Their name "nudibranch" literally means "naked gills" and describes the feather gills and horns that most have on their back

-  Some of their outer tissue is chemically toxic to to certain predators

Sea Anemone

Some info about Sea Anemones
-  They are predatory and will eat sea urchin and sea stars
-  They can also feed on large jellyfish which get close enough to the bottom in shallow water to be captured by the anemone's tentacles.

Greetings from McMurdo Station, Antarctica!

Hey everyone.

Well, we've made it to Antarctica.  The first stop on our way out to the WAIS Divide field camp, is the central town of McMurdo Station.  McMurdo is the largest "town" in Antarctica and has over 1000 people during the summer.

This is where McMurdo is (Red dot on the bottom of image):

We got here a couple of days ago, and will be here for a about a week longer getting all of our gear together for WAIS Divide.  We will also be spending some time taking safety classes and doing a little sightseeing!  I'm hoping to get some nice shots of penguins or seals.

Here are some pics:

Me and Paddington

(Click pic to enlarge)

Looking out at Mt. Discovery

the skiway at McMurdo with some 

planes getting read to take off

Everyone is getting anxious and excited to get out to WAIS Divide and start drilling some ice core!

Update from New Zealand!

Hello again everyone!  I'm sitting comfortably here in the city of Christchurch, in the country of New Zealand.  Everyone that heads down to the WAIS Divide camp in Antarctica, must first go through New Zealand.  Our flights have been delayed for a few days, so it gave Paddington and myself a few days to check out a few sights in the city here.  First off, to give you a clearer picture of where we are, here is a map of New Zealand:

If you look at the South Island, you can see the city of Christchurch.  This is where we are.


Here's what we did:

First we went to the Nature museum and

hung out with some penguins!

Then we went to look at the Albatrosses

 

Next, we went over to the Egypt exhibit and got to see

a real mummy from ancient Egypt!

We headed over to another area of the museum and

hung out with some dinosaurs!

 

(look near his feet)

...Then stopped to look at a huge meteorite weighing

over 1000 pounds!

 

On our way out, we went through the Antarctica

exhibit and tried to take a ride on the SNO-CAT

(look near the door handle)

 

We passed by some seals

 

 and finally by an old snowmobile.

As it stands today, we are all scheduled to fly down to Antarctica in 2 more days.  If everything goes well, our next update should be from the ice.  Hopefully, I'll get some good penguin photos this year!

take care everyone,

-john and paddington