Pancake Ice

There is a lot of different types of ice in Antarctica.  When the seasonal ice in front of the station started melting, I saw a new type of ice — Pancake Ice.  Until recently, I thought the ice took on the rounded shape because of the icebreaker, which was breaking up the channel. Pancake ice occurs naturally in cold waters!

I love the colors in  the following photo, which was taken by Jordan Watson.

Pancake ice is formed from frazil ice and grease ice.  Sea ice starts to form as frazil ice in cold moving water.  Frazil ice is composed of fine ice crystals floating at the surface.  The frazil ice then thickens and sticks together to form grease ice ,which can be seen at the left and top of the next image.

With time, the grease ice separates into ice discs from winds and tidal currents.  Pancake ice has raised edges from slush (frazil ice) freezing around the edge of the ice disc or from collisions between ice pieces.

The next two photos were also taken by Jordan.  A weddell seal checking us out through the broken ice:

And finally, an awesome photo of a piece of sheet ice floating away from station.  This is a large piece of ice that broke off from an ice shelf.  It is different from pancake ice.  I had to include it anyway, because it is such a neat photo! 

From Ice to Water

There has been a dramatic change in the view from the station over the past several weeks.  There is water in front of the station for the first time in the past decade.  The road that we used to drive on and the ice runway broke apart and floated out to sea yesterday afternoon. 

Here is a collection of photos taken over the past several months. 

Hut Point Ridge

Hut Point Ridge 10/20/2010

Hut Point Ridge 2/15/2011

Mt. Discovery

Mt. Discovery 1/30/2011

Mt. Discovery 2/15/2011

Hut Point

Hut Point 2/14/2011

Hut Point 2/15/2011

Ice Pier

Ice Pier 10/20/2010

Ice Pier 2/15/2011

My Favorite Beach

Beach 2/14/2011

Pancake Ice 2/14/2011

Crashing Waves 2/15/2011

What a difference a day makes!

News about Antarctica – Deep Core Complete

 “We did not come here to study the climate of Antarctica — we are here because this is where the information is stored,” said Kendrick Taylor , chief scientist of the WAIS Divide program  from the Desert Research Institute  in Nevada, shortly before the last core came to the surface on Jan. 28, 2011 at 12:24 p.m. (local time).

Ice Core Photo by Heidi Roop

The Antarctic Sun: News about Antarctica – Deep Core Complete .

The above link will connect you to a great article about the WAIS divide ice core.  It describes the history of the WAIS divide core, information about the drilling season and plans for next year.  The article also provides great information on what the scientists are hoping to learn from this large ice core.

The Vessel Arrives

As the summer winds to an end, the station must prepare for the long dark winter.  The large amount of supplies needed this winter and next summer cannot be brought in by plane.  Once per year, the station is re-supplied by the fuel vessel and the cargo vessel. 

All employees involved in ship offload are switched to twelve hour shifts.  And, extra workers are flown in to assist with the cargo off load and load of the boat.  It is an impressive process.  All non-essential station activities are shut down to encourage everyone to focus on the dangerous task. 

The successful off load is complete and the final cargo boxes leaving the ice will be loaded tonight.  All extra station personnel will fly out tomorrow, and the station will be mostly back to normal.  The large boxes you see being offloaded will mostly be unloaded by the winter crew.  Below are awesome timelapse videos, put together by Mike, that shows the ship arrival and offload.  It is a choreographed dance!  You can see Mike’s other videos here.

After cargo offload, the vessel removes all of our solid waste from the island and returns it to LA.  The last of the mail and science cargo also leaves on the vessel.  T.J.’s ice cores from WAIS divide will be sent to the United States in a freezer on the boat.  To prevent the ice from melting, there are multiple backups in place, including a spare generator.  He will see the ice again at the National Ice Core Lab in Denver CO this summer.

Ice Bubbles!

Regina and Ruschle, friends from Washington, spent their Antarctic field season in the gorgeous Allen Hills studying blue ice.  They were looking at Albedo (reflective property) of the ice.  To help determine the influence of cracks and bubbles on Albedo measurements, they mapped the cracks in the ice and photographed bubble concentrations.  Ruschle loves ice bubbles!  So, I spent some time in their lab (ie. cold, windy freezer) viewing samples and watching the ice cutting process.  Then I moved to a warm window with Regina to photograph the ice bubbles.  I have to admit that the shapes and crystals within a cross-section if ice are pretty cool!  You can read more about their adventure in the field at Regina’s Blog.

What shapes do you see?

T.J. is back in Christchurch.  He will be attending a conference in New Zealand before returning to the states to visit family.  I will be leaving here to join him in Seattle on February 21st.  We are looking forward to a warm weather vacation in March!

Emperor Penguins

I have now seen Emperor penguins on three different occasions. And, they have not lost their appeal.  But they are losing their feathers!!  I could sit and watch them for hours. 

The Emperors have moved away from the ice edge to moult.  This year, approximately 14 penguins chose Pegasus road as their moulting site.  The Emperor’s coat fades from dark black to brown starting in November before the yearly moult in Jan/Feb.  New feathers emerge before the old feathers are lost to help preserve heat.  The new feathers then push out the old ones.  It takes approximately 34 days for the entire process.  Then they emerge with the pristine tuxedo’s that we are all familiar with.

The first penguins I saw were the first three emperors to arrive near McMurdo.  A shuttle driver friend dropped me off and I spent 20 minutes alone, in complete silence, with these amazing animals!

They are just starting to lose their feathers.

The next time I had the opportunity to visit the penguins, I went with friends on a rec trip.  It was cold!  The number of penguins increased to 14 and they were all in different stages of moulting.  My favorite penguin was this guy:

Even his penguin friend looked frightened.  You can see the gorgeous black feathers emerging from under the old ones.  But, it does not look like a comfortable process.

T.J. and I visited the penguins one last time before he returned to Christchurch.  It was great to share the Antarctica penguin experience with him!

My favorite penguin from the prior visit was looking better, with only a few old feathers left to fall out.  Others were starting to change, though and looked draped in fur.

There are now piles of feathers everywhere!

3330

3330 !!!!

The Second Deepest Ice Core Ever Drilled!!!!

The season ended on a high note – we reached our depth goal, 3330 meters, which is as deep as we were allowed to drill.

 

 

To celebrate, the entire camp came down to the Arch. There were toasts, pictures, and much merriment.

 

 

If you look at the sign above, you’ll notice it’s not exactly 3330 meters. It’s actually harder to figure out exactly how deep you are than you might think.  Krissy is holding the drillers’ depth, which is inaccurate because of cable stretch. We core handlers measure the depth as well, but it’s inaccurate right now because the ice wasn’t butted up during the brittle ice. And the depth is further not known because the drill is not perfectly vertical – it is off a couple of degrees. So when I say 3330, I mean some depth about 3330 – the official depth will change with more measurement.

 

For many of use at camp, it was the end of a great season.

 

For others, it was the culmination of four years of drilling, and more of planning.

 

 

For Ken, the lead PI, it was 10 years ago that the first proposal went in. For all us of, we are very aware of the hard work of hundreds of people before us, both at WAIS Divide and elsewhere who set us up for such a record breaking season.

Now more work begins. The ice is on its way to the National Ice Core Lab in Denver, Co, where we will starting making measurements on it, cutting it up, and sending it around the country for analysis.

Aerial Views from a C-130 Window

We passed over some amazing views of the Transantarctic Mountains on a recent C-130 flight to the South Pole.  This is a slideshow of the views from the back window of the airplane.  The last aerial slideshow that I posted was from the window of a twin otter.  You can see that we were flying at a much higher altitude in the C-130.  The scattered clouds during the flight created interesting shadows across the glaciers and peaks. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

You can slow down the slide show by moving your cursor over the picture.  Then click stop and navigate at your own pace.  Enjoy!

New York Times: McMurdo Marathon

The 13th annual McMurdo Run and Ski Marathon was featured in the Sports Section of the Sunday New York Times (1/29/2011)!  I did the 1/2 Marathon Ski.  You can link to a prior post I did on the event from the blog home page.  Here is a link to the article:



In Antarctica, a 26.2 Mile Race on a Shelf of Ice

www.nytimes.com

The McMurdo Marathon brings together a small field of runners on a course at the bottom of the world.

 

Antarctic Marathon Replay — Slideshow

www.nytimes.com

A look at the 13th annual McMurdo Marathon, held Jan. 16 at a research base in Antarctica.

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Isaacson, a writer and photographer for New York Times, at the finish line.  That is me in photo 10.

 

 

Fata Morgana

Fata Morgana is a type of superior mirage that is seen as a band just above the horizon.  The first time I saw it, I thought I was seeing things.  And I guess I was. . .

The image is distorted, and often unrecognizable, because the mirage is made up of multiple upside down and right side up images stacked on top of each other with alternating stretch and compression zones.  This optical illusion occurs when a ray of light passes through different temperature air layers causing it to bend — usually occurring during a thermal inversion.   Most commonly, Fata Morgana occurs in polar regions over large sheets of ice with uniform low temperatures, which is why we often see it off in the distance.  You can sit and watch the Fata Morgana change over time.  I have not had my camera to capture the phenomenon.  Luckily, on a recent walk, Kressley took a photo for me to share with you all.  It captures the Fata Morgana perfectly!

On a different day, the island to the right looks like a regular island.

Fata Morgana is named for Morgan Le Fey, the half-sister of King Arthur, who was able to change shape at will.