Midwinter special

Published weekly during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, , for the United States Program June 21, 2005 Dark days, starry nights New home for the Dome? By Kristan Hutchison Sun staff After more than 30 years at the , the landmark aluminum dome may retire to Southern California. The original plan was to recycle the dome, which is the equivalent of 2.6 million aluminum soda cans, but a vet- erans group is interested in using the structure in conjunction with the CEC/Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, Calif. Photo courtesy of Keith Martin / Special to The Antarctic Sun “I think it’s worth the effort from a An apple hut shelter is illuminated while the moon hides behind during a sky-watch- number of perspectives,” said Bill ing outing near McMurdo Station. On June 21 Antarctic workers celebrate mid-winter and begin Hilderbrand, president of the the countdown to the return of the sun. For more on winter skywatching, see page 15. CEC/Seabee Historical Foundation, keeping alive the history of the military construction battalion that built the dome. “Number one, to kind of recog- Old mud offers future promise nize the Seabees who went down to By Kristan Hutchison margin is off limits to Antarctica and what they did.” Sun staff “You do need a technological drill ships,” said The dome has to be removed any- The tubes of olive- shift sometimes to really foster Anderson, a professor of way. Under the 1991 environmental green mud John Anderson a new age of discovery.” Earth sciences at Rice protocols of the Antarctic Treaty, the collected from his recent - John Anderson University. “We don’t get U.S. Antarctic Program must remove cruise represent 10,000 Marine geologist a lot of drill core from any structures from the continent after years of Antarctic history Antarctica.” they are no longer in use. Several large and a breakthrough in drilling technology. In 1994 a group of scientists began trying buildings at McMurdo Station have For decades scientists have wanted to pull to find ways to tap into this rich resource been torn down and shipped to the U.S. samples from the seafloor around the edges under the project name Shaldril, short for as trash in recent years, but the dome of Antarctica. The layers of sediment contain Shallow Drilling on the Antarctic Continent will be the largest ever removed from revealing remnants of the continent’s past, Margin. Several years ago a promising new the South Pole. including climate patterns and glaciation. flexible diamond coring system was tried in Several of the modular buildings the But the sediment is in a no man’s land with northern high latitudes by Seacore Limited. dome sheltered were removed this win- too much ice for drill ships to maneuver, yet Shaldril successfully tested the same system ter. The functions they housed - includ- not enough for a stable drilling platform. for the first in April. ing the kitchen and dining area, “For the most part the whole Antarctic See Shaldril on page 18 See Dome on page 20 INSIDE Ice hole traps Why fish went B15 blockade Quilters sew Building big for tiny particles white with cold breaks up winter together big balloons Page 3 Page 17 Page 16 Page 12 Page 13 www.polar.org/antsun 2 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

I just read the latest studies about Oh, really? the effects of being in cold and dark And what did you find out? environments for long periods of time.

Cold, hard facts Winter Number of Antarctic research stations: 81 Number of stations open all winter: 47 Winter population at the U.S. stations: 241 at McMurdo, 86 at South Pole, 20 at Palmer. Percentage of women at McMurdo this winter: 33 Think about what? That there's a Average age at McMurdo: 38 years old chance of getting Age range: 19 to 65 years old short term memory loss. What do you Where McMurdo winter workers are think about that? from: 49 from Colorado, 17 each from California, Washington and Minnesota, nine each from Alaska, Idaho and Wyoming Number two in Maxim magazines list of the seven worst spring break destina- tions: The NOAA observatory at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

Sources: Station reports, Mike Blachut, Dani Dipietro, Amber Burton, RPSC

More comics on page 23 It’s a harsh cartoon Matt Davidson The Antarctic Sun is funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the United States Antarctic Program (OPP-000373). Its primary audience is U.S. Antarctic Program participants, their families and their friends. NSF reviews and approves material before publication, but opinions and conclusions expressed in the Sun are not necessarily those of the Foundation.

Use: Reproduction and distribution are encouraged with acknowledgment of source and author.

Senior Editor: Kristan Hutchison Copy Editor: Mark Sabbatini Publisher: Valerie Carroll, communications manager, RPSC

Contributions are welcome. The next issue will publish in October. Contact the Sun at [email protected]. Web address: www.polar.org/antsun June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 3 Ice tongue fragment Ice on the move Drygalski By Emily Stone ble, MacAyeal said. Sun staff Because the long side of the berg was B15a Perhaps giant icebergs get stage fright. facing the Drygalski, there was an enor- B15a, the largest of the enormous bergs mous amount of water between the two loitering around the edge of McMurdo pieces of ice. The only way to move that Sound, was poised to smash into the much water out of the way to allow a direct Drygalski Ice Tongue in January. Instead, it collision is through geophysical forces tied waited until the sun went down and most of to the Earth’s rotation. The laws that govern McMurdo Station cleared out for the winter those forces, in particular the direction that to make its big move. And it didn’t even water moves around low pressure areas, B15k turn out to be that big. meant there was no way to get that water out B15a, a Rhode Island-sized chunk of ice, of the way, MacAyeal said. hit the Drygalski sometime between April “That’s a lot of water,” he said. “It just C16 11 and 12, according to satellite images can’t happen.” from the two days. But it didn’t bash into The iceberg then continued on its trip Mt. Erebus the ice tongue. It just scraped along it a bit, north. For a while it was headed toward the B15j then continued on its way. Italian station at . But Satellite photo by Envisat ASAR “Like a bad parallel parking job,” is how between April 20 and May 4, the northern Iceberg B15a deals the Drygalski Icetongue researcher Kelly Brunt described the end of the berg rotated east again, this time a glancing blow as it brushes by on April 15, impact, comparing it to the way her grand- by about 24 degrees. It now looks like it will knocking a chip off the old iceblock. mother used to scrape her Buick along fire pass safely out of range of Terra Nova. hydrants while easing into a parking spot. The scientists haven’t figured out why earlier calving off the Ross Ice Shelf in Brunt is a graduate student in Doug the iceberg veered off to the east a second 1987. It has followed a similar path as those MacAyeal’s research group at the time, MacAyeal said. It may have to do with icebergs, he said. University of Chicago. The team of scien- the water depth in the area. Icebergs carry The interloper is about 16km long and tists has been following the icebergs since around the entire water column underneath 2km wide, Weidner said. It got within 60km they calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. them as they travel. It is difficult for water of McMurdo Station, but backed up so that B15a, at more than 3,000 square kilometers, columns to change depth, because they it’s about 90km away now, about the same is the largest remaining remnant of the orig- don’t like to get significantly fatter or skin- distance north as Beaufort Island. inal B15 iceberg. nier as the floor rises or falls below them. The berg shouldn’t affect any penguin B15a knocked a 50-square-kilometer B15a’s path may be based on trying to stay colonies, he said. Nor should it interfere chunk off the eastern edge of the ice tongue. in water of the same depth, MacAyeal said. with the ships moving in and out of station The berg appears to be relatively unscathed, B15a’s departure is good news from a in January. The closest the interloper got to Brunt said, but the resolution from those logistical point of view. B15a and its fellow the shipping channel was 40km and it’s now satellite images is limited. There may be bergs had been blocking the winds and cur- sitting still about 70km away. The iceberg some “push mounds” along the western rents from sweeping out the accumulated could move between now and next summer edge of the berg, which are smashed up sec- sea ice in McMurdo Sound, making it diffi- if the sea ice blows out and the berg has tions that look much like the front end of a cult to get the annual ships to station. some open water to swim around in. car would after hitting a brick wall. Almost the entire mouth of the sound “Right now I don’t think it’s a factor in This was a far less exciting collision than had been blocked before B15a took off, the shipping,” Weidner said. “But it could some anticipated. B15a started moving Brunt said. Two other giant bergs, B15k and be. It’s hard to say.” toward the Drygalski in November after C16, are still blocking about 60 percent of MacAyeal’s team will continue to track spending several years partially blocking the entrance to the sound. But that’s a big all the icebergs’ winter movements through the entrance to McMurdo Sound. By mid- improvement. satellite images. Over the past several sea- January, it was within 4.5km of the ice “B15a is out of the way and that’s a good sons they’ve placed GPS instruments, seis- tongue, with the northern end of the iceberg thing,” said Marianne Okal, another gradu- mometers and weather-monitoring stations aimed straight at the Drygalski. This ate student with the group. “I’d be surprised on several of the bergs. B15a’s movement, prompted some in the iceberg community to if there’s still 85 miles of sea ice out there while exciting, is going to make it difficult start predicting “Death Match 2005: B15a next December.” for the team to retrieve the instruments on vs. the Drygalski Ice Tongue.” There is, however, a new iceberg resi- its southern end. Among other things, they The berg disappointed those waiting for dent inside McMurdo Sound. George hope to learn if the December Sumatran an ice demolition derby. Instead of continu- Weidner, a researcher at the University of earthquake registered on the seismometer. ing forward, B15a stopped and backed up a Wisconsin, is tracking a small berg that For a while, as the berg headed toward bit before continuing forward again – a pat- managed to slip through the gap between Terra Nova, it looked like the group would tern that was repeated for the next few B15k and C16 and enter the sound. The be able to reach B15a from the station there. months. “interloper,” as Weidner dubbed it, would “We were getting all excited that we Then the northern end of the iceberg not have gotten in if B15a hadn’t moved out were going to go to the Italian station,” started rotating east as the iceberg continued of the way. MacAyeal said. “We had our cappuccino moving slowly north. Eventually B15a was “It just carried itself right in there,” he orders ready.” lined up alongside the ice tongue, with its said. NSF-funded research in this story: long western side facing the Drygalski. This He’s not certain where the iceberg came Doug MacAyeal, University of Chicago, position made a massive collision impossi- from, but suspects it was the product of an http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/iceberg.html 4 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

Perspectives Perspectives The duality of the Southern thing

By Brien Barnett But open the door to the stairwell lead- Special to The Antarctic Sun ing to the new station from ground level, and the light pours out. Six flights up and stand still and feel the wind move through a freezer door light and warmth through the trees. I hear it, I feel it, surround me. but I can't smell it. The new station is the Taj Mahal. Why I would I ever want to go outside? I stare straight ahead, my palms pushed If I want, I can go from my bedroom, to together above me. I concentrate on the work, to the lounge, to yoga class and clasp on the sewing machine and imagine back to bed without changing into any- a bar connects me to it. I'm in yoga class thing heavier than my chef coat. There's and I'm trying to be in two places at once. something about putting on the many lay- It's how it is at South Pole Station in the ers of Extreme Cold Weather gear that winter. makes going outside seem daunting. Yet, I'm happy I'm here. It's one of those once I'm dressed and set foot outside, I'm once-in-a-lifetime opportunities I took at in love with it. I feel like a little kid on the the last minute of the summer, just days first day of winter. The sastrugi crunch before my plane was scheduled to take me beneath me and the ice not far below res- back to fresh sushi, ripened fruit, fragrant onates with a hollow sound. As I exhale, forests, refreshing and warm beaches, and every particle of my breath freezes and is the sight of throngs of beautiful women visible amid a whooshing sound. At -90F, outside a trendy club. Today, while I should be shaking. But I'm not. My ECW pretending to be a tree, I'm wishing I were Photo courtesy of Brien Barnett / Special to The Antarctic Sun is good and I'm warm. My goggles freeze not in this cold place, not washing pots Brien Barnett is a former journalist with over almost immediately and become use- and pans for my village of 86 people, not The Antarctic Sun and chose to spend his less, but if I pull my hat and balaclava just pretending. winter working in the kitchen at the South right and tight so only my eyes are show- But I am at the bottom of the world. I'm Pole. You can read his personal stories ing, I can create a shield of warm air from here to see what it's like to spend the and view photos and videos from my breath to keep my eyelids from freez- longest night on planet Earth. I recall the Antarctica at his Web site at ing. Between breaths I can see the quote made famous long ago in Antarctic www.brienbarnett.com. Southern Cross and the other stars in the circles: "It's not the worst decision you'll sky and sometimes, the beautiful cathe- ever make, just the longest." dral-like auroras that shimmer green Tick. Tock. Tick … the alarm rings and ers. I don't know how they did it without above me. it's 10 a.m.; time for my shift in the dish- modern digital entertainment. We have Most of my adventures outside have pit. But first, a tissue. This is a desert walls of movies and several hours of been little forays made with other people. where drinking six liters of water a day is Internet a day. These often form the basis There's still parts of this tiny station I the minimum. Rarely do I succeed. The of conversation. I can't really imagine life haven't been to yet, but I've five months daily ritual of clearing my nose is my in the old days, but I now see Shackleton's more. I have to save it. The sunset was the purgatory. wisdom in picking some of the men he longest and among the most beautiful I've I stand at my post two hours later as the did. They had been places and seen things seen. I can imagine sunrise, but know it lunch crowd begins to pass by. and their stories got them through the will be something to behold. "Hey, Mark," I say, starting a pointless winter I can't wait. But I will. question. "What's up today?" Outside it's … well, I don't go outside "Just another day in paradise, mate," much. Every time I do make it outside for the Aussie says. "Only 21 weeks to go." more than a moment I tell myself I'm Like a photo? Paradise. going to do it every day. Then suddenly it's Find it, save it, use it I think I've been praying to the wrong 10 days later and I haven't set foot past the food deck. god. www.polar.org For every exciting day here, there are South Pole is strange at night. From the weeks of routine and monotony. I must outside the station looks as if nobody's Antarctic give homage to Amundsen, Scott, home. As Yoda would say, "Dark and Shackleton and all the other early explor- empty, it is." Photo Library June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 5 around the continent

SOUTH POLE All in a night’s work By Brien Barnett South Pole correspondent The last regular New York Air National Guard LC-130 dipped its wing as it flew over South Pole Station Feb. 15, saluting the 86 people spending the winter at the bottom of the world.

The sun already circled low in the sky, Photo by Daniel Simon / Special to The Antarctic Sun but took another month to set. Twilight faded to black several weeks after that and Sunset at the South Pole is a once-a-year occasion that occurs over several weeks. winter set in. Long before nightfall, about 50 winter workers were busy building the fully enclosed elevated station and tearing increased levels of the gas may indicate a Lounge has become the defacto gathering down some of the buildings under the global warming trend. place since the demolition in March of the dome. (See story on page 21). Station life mostly revolves around the farthest-south adult-beverage establish- Meanwhile, about a dozen scientists temperature. Television screens in the din- ment, "90-South". For the few smokers on and research assistants were busy putting ing hall and around the station and an station a new spot was opened up under away summer gear, checking and calibrat- intranet Web page report the temps, wind the dome: BFK's Place. It's in the so-called ing their instruments, and starting work speed and pressure. Unlike McMurdo Black Box below Upper Berthing and gets gathering data from the night air and sky. Station, which can have howling storms, its name from the nickname for one of this Winter is primetime for science at the South Pole is cold, but fairly calm. year's residents, Kevin Shea, It's not much South Pole, but there's not much to see in Winds rarely exceed 40kph and often larger than a couple refrigerator boxes, but action. Bits and bytes of data are gathered hover around 20kph. it's a reliable place to get in on a card game by computers and saved or uploaded to At station closing the temperatures for the few who want to leave the "trailer universities and institutions in the home were about -45C and fell to -57C once park up there" to venture to the dome. countries of the researchers. Most of the night fell. Meteorologists at South Pole In May, the Black Box crew put on the data gathered this winter won't be ana- were a bit surprised by a warming spurt in BF5K, a fun-run inside the new station. lyzed to conclusion until next summer at April that eventually reached -34C. It gave Costumes and hijinx made for an enter- the earliest. There's little to witness, but all at the station a nice break. As June taining day. That night the South Pole win- the seemingly mundane chores of keeping began, though, the cold was back and the ter band Al Dente performed, singing a instruments operating in sub-zero condi- thermometer briefly hit -73.6C (-100.5F). few original tunes and tons of favorite tions, through power fluxes, computer There wasn't enough time for some to join covers. Perhaps the funniest guest solo of freeze-ups and other temporary crises are the infamous 300-degree club (when peo- the night belonged to five-time winter res- why they are here. ple race from a 200F-degree sauna outside ident Robert Schwartz, who works with a The Clean Air Sector houses the into the -100F-degree cold and around the new telescope called QUAD and is from National Oceanic and Atmospheric South Pole marker and back). Germany. His rendition of Rammstein's Administration's Atmospheric Research Five months into winter, and with four "Du Hast" had the crowd simultaneously Observatory. The winter staff there have more to go, station residents like to get dancing and laughing. That was followed been measuring particles and substances together to have fun and throw some good closely by HR Director Kurt Montas that make up the air over the South Pole parties to keep things interesting. dressed as Bob Marley singing "Puff the for more than three decades. NOAA-Corp Movies nearly every night, bingo for Magic Dragon" in a reggae style. Lt. Dan Simon said this year the instru- cash and prizes, yoga, tae-bo and salsa Mid-winter is drawing nigh. The weeks ments have recorded levels slightly higher classes and a never-ending chess tourna- are flying by and soon the sun will return levels of carbon dioxide than last year. ment offer some recreation to the winter to blind and dazzle the 86 souls keeping This year's data, of course, must still be residents. Every full moon, the South Pole South Pole Station up and running for the processed and analyzed back in the U.S., Hash House Harriers meander about sta- winter of 2005. See you all on the sunny but if true it continues a trend that's been tion and perform their rituals. side. seen here for the past 30 years. Carbon Since most of the people here this win- dioxide is a greenhouse gas and the ter live in the new elevated station. The B1 See McMurdo on page 6 winter weather (February-June)

McMurdo Station (Feb. 15-June 10) (Feb. 11-June 10) South Pole Station (Feb. 16-June 10) Avg. temp: 1F/-17C to -13F/-25C Avg. temp.: 27F/-3C to 33F/1C Avg. temp.: -71F/-57C to -59F/-51C High: 30F/-1C (Feb. 16) High: 42F/6C (April 15) High: -29F/-34C (April 30) Low: -34F/-37C (June 8) Low: 12F/-11C (June 10) Low: -100F/-74C (June 8) Peak wind: 66mph/106kph (May 18) Peak wind: 79mph/146kph (Feb. 19) Peak wind: 33mph/53kph (June 9) Total precipitation: 1.2 in/3.1 cm. Total precipitation: 8in/21cm Top physioaltitude: 11,122ft/3,390m (June 5) Snowfall: 45in/113cm 6 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 McMurdo From page 5 MCMURDO From sunset to sunrise Compiled by Mike Blachut and Sun staff The first sunset of the year was hidden behind clouds, so even people who woke up for it at 12:38 a.m. Feb. 21 didn’t see anything. But the clouds cleared later that week for the final flight of the season. McMurdo workers staying for the winter gathered outside to watch the plane disap- pear. It’s not scheduled to return until August. They toasted a farewell to their friends and a welcome to winter. Photo by Mike Bair / Special to The Antarctic Sun Winter weather came in with gusts of McMurdo Station glows in the winter darkness. The station has gone from the 24-hour day- 80kph as the sun dropped closer to the hori- light of summer to the 24-hour darkness of winter. zon, prolonging the sunsets. “I walk out of my dorm in the morning Zealand. Another group has been sewing a and literally my breath is taken away from quilt to be raffled for charity at the end of ‘Frozen’ vegetables the wind,” wrote Dani Dipietro, a labor the winter. (See story on page 14). allocator for the Facilities, Engineering, Since the last flight in February, the only By Lane Patterson Maintenance and Construction department. visitors have been a couple Adelie penguins McMurdo greenhouse operator “If you are talking to someone, forget it. and two seals that crawled in and out of Once traffic to and from Antarctica Your conversation stops for a few seconds town in mid-May. stops, the fresh vegetables run out quickly. while each person catches their breath Near the end of May the sea ice roads As one might imagine, four months back.” were shut down due to water on the ice. A without sunlight and fresh vegetables can Nobody saw the last sunset either, at sudden warm spell, with thermometers hit- be difficult to endure. But because 1:26 p.m. April 24, because it was hidden ting 17F, combined with the movement of McMurdo and South Pole stations have behind storm clouds. They celebrated any- the ice shelf, had kept the sea ice from greenhouses, the people wintering there way with a party at New Zealand’s nearby freezing over. The fleet operations crew don’t have to go without. , including the traditional sunset worked on the transition areas where the Built in the 1980s, the McMurdo polar plunge followed by a barbeque. roads cross from solid ground to the sea ice, greenhouse provides the 200-plus winter Dipietro estimated the temperature with scraping off ice contaminated with rock. personnel with fresh salads at least once a wind chill was about -57F. They also began establishing a flat area on week during the winter. The 30sqm insu- Within a few weeks the station was in the sea ice in front of the station for the lated building houses 41 high-intensity 24-hour darkness. Despite the constant Vorcore Project. discharge lamps and a series of Nutrient night, it is not a sleepy little town. The sci- Vorcore, a French acronym for Film Technique hydroponic systems. This ence tech, Laura Tudor, is managing 15 Experiment to Study the Stratospheric winter the McMurdo greenhouse has pro- ongoing experiments for science groups, Antarctic Polar Vortex, will launch a series duced on average 16 kg of lettuce and 2 kg which mostly involve gathering their data of 25 superpressure balloons to investigate of tomatoes a week, along with cucum- and transmitting to them. From their new the dynamics of the wind patterns that cir- bers, herbs and even flowers. The home in the JSOC building, the NASA cle the continent and its interaction with Antarctic Treaty requires that all crops guys are tracking various satellites. Since ozone chemistry in the late Antarctic winter grown in Antarctica be edible, so flowers NASA moved out of Crary Lab, only five and spring. Each balloon is a few hundred like nasturtiums and pansies are grown as people are rattling around inside in the win- cubic meters in size and will carry 10-20kg tasty and fun additions to salads. ter months, which is quite a large contrast to gondolas full of instruments. The balloons The new elevated station at the South the summer months when teams of will drift for several months, sending back Pole has a digitally controlled “growth researchers occupy every nook. Things are data. It’s a collaborative project supported chamber” designed by the University of much busier at a newer science building, by the French Centre National Arizona. This winter This winter the 18 where construction workers are building C’etudespatiales and the U.S. National square-meter chamber contains ripening the new long duration balloon facility. (See Science Foundation. cherry tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, cucum- story on page 12) The scientists will arrive in August and bers and a fragrant selection of herbs After working 54 hours a week, the win- send up the balloons in September and including rosemary, basil, cilantro, mint, ter crew squeezes out time for chess match- October. By then McMurdo residents will dill, parsley and chives. In the first 13 es, scrabble tournaments, bingo, trivia and be able to watch the sun rise and set again – weeks of winter it produced an average of other games. More than 150 people are part if clouds don’t get in the way. 9kg of lettuce and 900g of tomato a week. of the bowling tournament, either on one of Meanwhile they celebrate midwinter, In addition to vegetables, the green- the 27 teams or as pinsetters - well over half turning the dining hall into an Asian- houses provide a place where people the 241 people at McMurdo this winter. themed restaurant for the night, with a home sick for daylight and plants can bask A fundraiser collected $2,000 by mak- dance area, more than 300 origami cranes under high-intensity light while surround- ing and delivering calzones to people’s hanging from the ceiling and custom-made ed by dense vegetation. It’s not like home, rooms. The calzones were free, but the tips paper lanterns, wrote Amber Burton, an IT but it is warm, bright and full of green life were donations to Cholmondeley worker helping plan the festivities. – an environment one misses during the Children’s Home in , New See Palmer on page 7 Antarctic winter. June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 7 more pleasant for the construction crew and Palmer From page 6 scientists. “The weather here is just absolutely PALMER amazing,” Malmgren said. “I don’t think we’ve gotten colder here than maybe -5C. Weathering the winter It’s colder in Texas sometimes than it is Compiled by Sun staff here.” An unusual, triangular building appeared Perfect fishing weather on the hill behind Palmer Station this winter. University of Maine biologist Bruce At the end of March a nine-person con- Sidell recruited many Palmer residents to struction crew began work on the help catch fish for his study of ways the ice- International Monitoring Station, which will fish have adapted to the cold. (See story on house instruments tracking changes in air Photo by Stacie Murray / Special to The Antarctic Sun page 17) Other interesting creatures came A whale flips its tail next to Palmer Station. quality, the atmosphere and seismic activity. up in the nets as well, including a sponge Minke and humpbacks occasionally come It will replace three weather-beaten wooden that looked like a cored pineapple, giant into the bay to feed on krill. buildings uphill from the station. starfish and octopi. The 140-square-meter building’s trian- Asper, who is leading the project along with “It was really a beautiful part of the biologist Scott Gallager from Woods Hole gular design represents island and a beautiful the three organizations Oceanographic Institute. The instruments bay,” said Incze, who will be tethered to a node on the seafloor that will use the build- was on the night shift. ing. Built high on the hill with a tether and winch, which will allow “It’s dark. It’s excit- the instruments to rise to the surface or near behind the station, the ing. The ship was kind building’s many win- it and then be retracted. A cable will provide of moving around and power and allow the node to communicate dows will take advan- in the morning, little- tage of the view of with computers at Palmer Station and, via by-little it unfolded the Internet, anywhere in the world. mountains and water itself - lots of beautiful while its elevated stature Asper said the instrument package will glaciers and snowy have every imaginable sensor to measure lifts the air sampling mountains.” stacks above any local the light, nitrate, temperature, salinity, and Other projects also chlorophyll, as well as a microphone lis- influence. gave Palmer residents Photo by Stacie Murray / Special to The Antarctic Sun tening for mammals, a recorder detecting By the end of April a chance to get the crew had anchored A giant petrel chick spreads its wings on phytoplankton and zooplankton, and a Humble Island. The birds are being involved with the sci- remote controlled camera. the main columns in the ence. Twice a week granite bedrock, poured studied by Polar Oceans Group scientist ”The challenge is to find a place to put Bill Fraser. Janice O’Reilly the node where it will be protected form the 11 concrete footers checked on the giant and erected the foundation steel. In May iceberg scour,” Asper said, “and also a petrels on Humble Island, keeping track of route to run the cable where it too will be they finished installing the deck, floor and how many were left and how many had roof. Part of the crew will remain through protected.” flown for ornithologist Bill Fraser. About 26 Asper and Gallager, crisscrossed the the winter to complete the building’s interi- hatched during the summer and by May or and have it ready for occupancy by waters around Palmer in Zodiacs, taking they had gone from downy puffs to turkey- about 780,000 depth measurements with October. sized birds with feet the size of a woman’s “That building is going up so fast it’s an echosounder as they searched for a hand. Only five were left when Stacie likely site. While mapping the seafloor, unbelievable,” said Henry Malmgren, who Murray, the food service supervisor, saw maintains the station computer network. “It they discovered inaccuracies in the 100- them in May. year-old nautical charts used by research doesn’t look as weird as I thought it would.” “It’s pretty amazing to see these huge During the construction, wood, steel and vessels and cruise ships. The new infor- birds that are babes trying to figure out that mation reveals several submerged rocks in other building materials were stacked in they can fly,” Murray said. “They’re really areas recently cleared of trash. The trash had areas the old charts indicated were clear. beautiful in the air when they fly, they’re The captain of the Gould immediately put been pulled out of an old dump site on the very graceful and have huge wingspan, but station in the 2003-2004 season and filled the new data to work, their feet are so big that modifying the ships estab- about 160 containers, each the size of a stan- they kind of wobble and on dard chest freezer. The gray trash containers lished route. the ground their not very Asper and Gallager had been stacked on the station since then, agile at all.” blocking the view of mountains, glaciers also found several accept- and water in some areas. Peeking at Palmer able sites for the instru- “They were stacked up on every flat A new science project ment. Though nowhere piece of land they could find,” said waste set up a Webcam that was completely safe from specialist Ildi Incze. “You’d be driving up allows anybody to take a icebergs, a few deep holes the road and you couldn’t see the beautiful peek at the weather in were guarded by shallow- view, you couldn’t see the glacier because Palmer. The camera is the er areas surrounding them. these offensive totes were in the way.” first piece of the Polar The favorite site is on the Over the past few months the trash has Remote Interactive Marine far side of Bonaparte been shipped out on the Gould, with the Observatory (PRIMO). Point from Palmer Station. final 14 containers leaving in June. PRIMO will consist of a set Meanwhile, they set up The weather cooperated for the first part of instrumentation about a Webcam nearer the sta- of the winter, often snowing at night and 2km to 3km south of Palmer, Photo by Ildi Incze / Special to The Antarctic Sun tion to test how the clearing up during the day. That made work said oceanographer Vernon A seal near Palmer Station. See Palmer on page 8 8 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 Palmer From page 7 equipment will interact with the Palmer net- work. Palmer residents like it because they no longer have to answer the most common question from family and friends – what’s the weather? “I can’t find enough words for gray and blowing,” Incze said. “Now you just say click on the link.” The link is http://4dgeo.whoi.edu/tsg/ Enjoying the weather The weather has been good enough that some people camped in tents behind the sta- tion into May, despite the occasional ice storm and increasing darkness. The good weather allowed people to spend their one day off each week outside skiing, boating to nearby islands and practicing ice climbing with the Glacier Search and Rescue team. If they’re inside after work, Palmer resi- dents are likely playing a German board Photo by Ildi Incze / Special to The Antarctic Sun game called Settlers of Catan. Several times All hands help pull in nets at night on the deck of the Laurence M. Gould during a fishing a week they gather in the dining room to trip to collect samples for research by University of Maine biologist Bruce Sidell. play the game, described as a cross between Risk and Monopoly. It became almost anyway. Even a simple crossing of the addictively popular after a rigger introduced SHIPS Drake Passage can turn exciting, like the the game to the station, said Malmgren. Gould ferries fish, fossils storm that came up on Feb. 12 as the ship They made extra pieces out of Fimo clay to headed south. As the Gould entered the allow for more players and photocopied the Compiled by Sun staff from reports by Al Drake Passage it was hit by 9m seas from playing cards to enlarge the deck. Hickey, Harold “Skip” Owen, Steven Ager the southwest and sustained winds of 65- “We’ve just been going nuts over it,” and Andrew Nunn 75kph gusting to 90-110kph. The Gould Malmgren said. For the Laurence M. Gould, it’s time to rolled to 40 degrees in the troughs, and it They’ve also enjoyed the beauty, as do the chores – take out the trash and have looked like science equipment secured on baby-blue icebergs float in and out of the an annual checkup. the back deck might be swept overboard, bay, sometimes accompanied by seals, Most of the year the research vessel so the ship detoured. Even when the ship humpback and minke whales, cormorants shuttles back and forth between Punta made it across the passage and into the and penguins. Arenas, Chile and Palmer Station at least more sheltered the strong “We just had an absolutely jaw-drop- once a month, but when it pulls away June winds and rough seas continued. ping, stellar sunset and half the moon has 24 the Gould will be gone for a full three After the rather epic Drake crossing, just come up over the glacier,” Palmer months. The Gould will carry a load of the Gould reached the and Station Manager James Slaughter said dur- hazardous waste all the way to Port did surveys of the sea floor around the ing a phone conversation in May. “It’s one Hueneme, Calif., a trip of 12,000km that three Larsen ice shelves. The surveys led of those magical times.” takes nearly a month. All hazardous waste by sedimentologist Gene Domack from Even on Midwinter’s Day, people at is removed from the station every two Hamilton College included extensive bot- Palmer get to watch the sun rise and set. years. Then the Gould will go into dry tom sampling, oceanographic profiling Palmer is 197km outside the Antarctic dock for some annual maintenance before and photos of the seafloor. The goal is to Circle that marks the extent of 24-hour returning south. understand why the enormous ice shelves darkness in winter and 24-hour daylight in It will be a change from the usual rou- are breaking up. The 3,500sqkm Larsen B summer. The Laurence M. Gould was tine, but the usual isn’t always routine ice shelf disintegrated in 2002. By looking scheduled to be at Palmer on Midwinter’s at the sediment below where the ice shelf Day, which is usually celebrated with a hol- used to be, Domack will learn how long iday meal and exchanging greetings with the ice shelf had been there and whether other stations around the continent. As its disappearance is part of a naturally usual, they planned to bring out the white recurring cycle. tablecloths and elegant serving dishes this After the surveys were complete, the year. Gould stopped by Vega Island to pick up a When the Gould leaves the station June cache of fossils left the previous year by 24, the 20 people remaining for the winter paleontologist Jim Martin and his field will be isolated for three months. About 80 team. The crew had to wait for a break in percent of them have worked in Antarctica the 75-90kph winds to go ashore in a before, most at the South Pole. Zodiac and retrieve the fossils. “It’s a really solid group of people,” From there the Gould headed east to do Slaughter said. “They know how things are some work for the Consortium on the going to work and they know how to get Photo by Ildi Incze / Special to The Antarctic Sun Ocean’s Role in Climate - Abrupt Climate along.” An unusual sponge caught in the net during a fishing trip. See Ships on page 9 June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 9

Ships From page 8 sent on a small scale a process that Change Studies, called CORC – could someday affect a larger portion ARCHES. CORC-ARCHES is an of the . McPhee said a effort to understand and predict abrupt polynya likely occurs when the upper changes in the climate system, and layer of water becomes slightly denser their causes. They have instruments as the surface freezes in the winter. moored in several locations in the The increased density is enough to Weddell Sea to monitor changes in the make the upper layer of water heavier production of Southern Ocean Bottom than the water below, so the heavy top Water and the steady increase in sub- water starts to sink and relatively surface temperatures, which has been warm bottom water begins to rise. documented over the last 20 years. Once the sea ice is gone, the cycle After checking those instruments, col- continues with water cooling at the lecting the stored data and redeploying surface, becoming denser and drop- them, the Gould headed north, arriving ping again. As it circulates the water in Punta Arenas March 12. releases large amounts of heat, and The next few crossings of the Drake possibly carbon dioxide, into the Passage were much calmer, allowing atmosphere. the Gould science crew to collect air “It’s one of the few places where and water samples, deploy buoys that the deep ocean can communicate listen for the presence of whales in the directly with the atmosphere,” area, and stop at to McPhee said. retrieve equipment left there by a sum- “Formation of a large polynya is mer field camp studying the penguin kind of a wild card in the whole sys- colonies. tem,” McPhee said. “If widespread From late April through May, the deep convection becomes established Gould went on two fishing trips. Using again it can really change the rate at nets and traps they fished for species Photo by Chris Kenry / Special to The Antarctic Sun which deep water is produced. We needed by Bruce Sidell in his studies of The 250-ton drill for Shaldril is installed on the don’t really know what conditions icefish adaptations to the cold. (See Nathaniel B. Palmer in Punta Arenas, Chile. The test would then shut it off.” story page 17). voyage proved the drill and ship were up to the task of McPhee’s science group will be The Gould was scheduled to be at collecting sediment samples in otherwise difficult to reach areas off-shore from Antarctica. taking precise measurements of tem- Palmer Station on midwinter’s day, perature, salinity, currents and turbu- and then begin its longer-than-usual region where the Weddell Polynya was lence; trying to spot the threshold trip north. It will return to Palmer Sept. 21. active, it vented enough heat from the point when the conditions prompt the deep ocean to melt roughly 17m of sea ice. polynya to form. The instruments usually NBP headed for MaudNESS According to estimates by physical used to measure currents, temperature and Compiled by Sun staff oceanographer Arnold Gordon at depth take measurements at scales of a The crew of the Nathaniel B. Palmer is Columbia University, during its active meter or longer, but the ones McPhee’s about to find out what it’s like to spend years, the Weddell Polynya produced as team uses will record changes on centime- months stuck in the . much Antarctic Bottom Water as the con- ter scales. They won’t actually be stuck, but for tinental shelf of Antarctica, where the Crossing the Pacific two months this winter the U.S. research cold, dense water is usually created. vessel will stay in the eastern Weddell Sea In 1994 McPhee cruised to the Maud The MaudNESS cruise will be the as it freezes around the ship so researchers Rise area aboard the NBP but missed the finale of a busy winter season for the NBP. can study an unusual ice phenomenon. formation of a sizable polynya just north- After two weeks in Lyttleton, New “It’s an area where there’s a lot of sort east of the rise by a couple of weeks. He Zealand, for maintenance, the NBP headed of strange activity, I guess you might say,” did get to experience typical winter weath- east toward Chile on March 3. Calm seas said polar oceanographer Miles McPhee, er for the area, cruising through 7.5m seas and fair skies allowed the crew to begin the lead scientist for the cruise, dubbed to reach the edge of the sea ice. Once the preparing the ship for its next cruise. MaudNESS for the Maud Nonlinear ship was in the ice it was protected from Along the way the instruments collected Equation of State Study. waves but not wind, which reached data on gravity, magnetics and the shape The strange activities involve polynyas 120kph at times. of the seafloor for Joann Stock of the – large openings in the sea ice – which “We made mixed layer measurements California Institute of Technology. Stock sometimes develop in the middle of the in a hurricane,” McPhee said. “There was uses the data to improve the understanding winter in the Weddell Sea over a sub- no vertical ship motion at all, but, boy, you of the Antarctic continental plate. This merged mountain called Maud Rise. Maud could barely stand up on deck, the wind cruise focused on several fracture zones Rise is centered at about 65S 2E. A large was blowing so hard.” and magnetic anomalies caused by the polynya was first noticed there in satellite On this cruise he and the 17 other sci- movement of the Australia plate away images in the late 1970s. entists on the research team plan to spend from . Later named the Weddell Polynya, it longer in the area where they expect the The crew also released buoys designed persisted through several austral winters, circumstances for a polynya could devel- to drift with the currents and send back slowly drifting westward and covering op. They’ll camp on the sea ice at times. satellite signals reporting their position, about 10 percent of the area normally It’s worth braving the winter winds ocean temperature and other data. frozen. McPhee calculated that in the because the Weddell polynya may repre- See Ship on page 10 10 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

Ships From page 9 On St. Patrick’s Day the science crew Lapeyrere Bay on the north side of Anvers decorated the galley and put out candy. Island. As they were drilling, the winds The luck held and, despite choppy seas picked up and a 75kph gust knocked the and a moderate wind, the NBP arrived in ship 140m from the drill hole. The equip- Punta Arenas, Chile, a day ahead of sched- ment wasn’t damaged, but it marked an ule on March 23. exciting end for the first Shaldril cruise, When the crew pulled the magnetome- which arrived back in Punta Arenas on ter back on board, they discovered it had April 24. been damaged during the crossing, possi- bly in a collision with a shark. Glacial comparison After several weeks in port, the NBP Drill test sets out June 23 with a new team of scien- In Punta Arenas, 250 tons of drilling tists to measure erosion from the glacial equipment was loaded onto the NBP, rais- tips of the third largest icefield in the Photo courtesy of Emma Reid / Special to The Antarctic Sun ing the ship’s center of gravity. The ship world. It’s the beginning of a three-year Bold and cold, competitors in the first “Undie had been prepared for the load with some study spanning six tidewater glaciers from 500” race ‘round the Scott Base sign. With adjustments in Lyttleton. The purpose of Patagonia to the , windchill, the temperature was -21C with a the cruise was to test the drilling system to which the researchers expect will lead to light snow falling during the 500m to raise see if it could sample sediment along the an empirical law of glacier erosion. The money for Child Cancer. continental margin of Antarctica in areas findings could aid scientists using glacial difficult for conventional drill ships to sediment layers to interpret climate pat- NEIGHBORS reach. (See story on page 1). The ship terns. headed south, crossing the Drake Passage Only the Antarctic and Greenland Busy winter at Scott Base in rough weather. icesheets outsize the 13,000-square-kilo- By Kevin Rigarlsford “It was a challenge to keep some of the meter Patagonian Ice Field. The long, nar- Scott Base winter manager equipment tied down last night on a ship row icefield stretches through 360 kilome- This year’s crew of 19 is the largest full of drilling equipment,” wrote marine ters of the Andes Mountains. About 50 group to winter at Scott Base since 1957. projects coordinator Ashley Lowe in an glacial fingers push through the valleys The high number of personnel is due to the April 2 report. and touch the sea. Most of these tidewater construction work being completed on the The ship and equipment made it across glaciers have been receding, probably new heated storage facility, the Hillary Field safely and took shelter in Maxwell Bay in related to a general warming of the area by Centre. The Hillary Field Centre will the South Shetland Islands to drill the first 0.4°C to 1.4°C in the last 100 years and a replace the “Hangar” and several smaller sample of sediment. decrease of precipitation on the Pacific storage areas currently in use. The new In three days they drilled 108.5 meters, Ocean side of the icefield. The researchers building will increase the heated space at recovering most of the core. The NBP then will look at two of the glaciers, the Scott base by a third. The entire base staff crossed Bransfield Strait to attempt Penguin and San Rafael glaciers, along have taken on the work with enthusiasm and drilling near Seymour Island in the with the Marinelli glacier in Tierra del morale has remained high through the sea- Weddell Sea. High winds in the area pre- Fuego. It’s a stormy area difficult to son. vented them from drilling, so the scientists approach because of the climate and The winter started at Scott Base with a collected seismic data to help identify rugged terrain. live concert with the Christchurch alternate drilling sites. The ice, waves and In March a research team led by Symphony Orchestra playing Ralph winds increasing to 130kph battered the glaciologist Bernard Hallet from the Vaughan William’s “Sinfonia Antarctica.” seismic instruments, putting holes in its University of Washington flew in by heli- For the concert the bar area was set up as a outer cover and tearing wires inside. copter with stakes, GPS, and radar to theatre, complete with tiered seating. Video “After retrieving the seismic gear, we determine the thickness and speed of the from Scott Base was broadcast directly to decided to run and hide,” Lowe wrote on tidewater glaciers. Christchurch town hall, where an audience April 9. From June 23 to July 15 another team of over 2,000 people, including New As the winds continued to howl, the of researchers led by marine geologist Zealand’s Prime Minister, Helen Clark, scientists retreated to a more sheltered John Anderson will approach the glaciers enjoyed our company for the evening. In drill site in Herbert Sound, which would aboard the NBP to measure the seafloor true Scott Base tradition, the concert-goers test different drilling and sampling tech- where sediment eroded by the glacier attended in a variety of “formal attire,” niques. They retrieved a 10.512m core spills down. They’ll take core samples of including the Gorilla and Vinyl Vera. before hitting something harder. Changing the sediment layers, study the marine New Zealand pianist Michael Houston tools to drill through the harder material geology and take seismic data. was fortunate enough to be accompanied by would take some time and by then the The same thing will be done next year our very own Jeff Reid (piano) and Conrad weather had calmed and the skies had at glaciers in Maxwell Bay in the South Pearce (percussion) during his rendition of cleared, so they returned to the Seymour Shetlands, in Lapeyrere Bay on the North Psathas, View from Olympus. Jeff and Island drill site. Conditions remained good side of Anvers Island and in Flanders Bay Conrad will no doubt be approached by the there long enough to hit a boulder at 20m, along the Antarctic Peninsula. By compar- New Zealand Symphony Orchestra upon but by the time the drill was pulled back ing the movement of the glaciers with the their return to New Zealand. on board, ice was closing in on the ship. sediment layers, Hallet and Anderson On the more active side of social recre- Several more drilling attempts were expect to determine how glacial erosion ation, people have competed in various thwarted by bad weather before the varied during climate changes in the last 2 tournaments including dodgeball, Seacore drilling team managed to cut a million years. final 22m core in the more protected See Neighbors on page 11 June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun •11 Neighbors From page 9 volleyball, 10-pin bowling, trivia nights and Friday night darts, with the South Pole Station playing via the radio. April started with “April Fools” day, this year celebrated by the replacement of the U.S. flag at the Long Distance Balloon Project site with a New Zealand one, only to find our flag at Scott Base had been replaced with an Australian flag. ANZAC day, remembering those who fought in WWI and WWII, was commemo- rated with due ceremony on a snow-swept flag station. Traditionally a dawn ceremony, we opted for a respectable 0800 “dawn,” as Photo by Guillaume Dargaud / Special to The Antarctic Sun sunrise was still four months away. The French, European Union and Italian flags are carried to , which is The first polar plunge was a huge success occupied for the first time this winter. with plenty of swimmers braving the –30C temperatures. The mid-winter plunge will outside . When the British supply ship RRS Ernest take place June 25 with another open invite For this first “evaluation” winter 13 people Shackleton left Rothera Station in March, a to McMurdo residents to swim, enjoy a are on station. Eight are part of the technical happy band of twenty-one souls on shore meal and spend the evening with us. team, five have scientific activities, six are new- "waved until our arms hurt and our colorful comers to this cold land, two are bachelors and fusillade of flares died out." Concordia’s first winter only one is female. Eleven are French, but three Four of them had already been at the station By Guillaume Dargaud are counted as Italian. Go figure. for a more than a year, since the British Antarctic Concordia correspondent We hit the news last December when, after Program tour of duty is generally 30 months. South Pole shares the High Antarctic Plateau eight years of work, the Epica drilling project Three were back for a repeat winter after some with a new neighbor this winter. The Franco- stopped a few meters from the bedrock having time away. Italian station of Concordia has opened for year- extracted the oldest ice in the world, a core span- "But for the bulk of us, this is our first round operation, after five years of challenging ning 3,270.20 meters and 900,000 years. It cov- encounter with the bewildering ritual which is construction. ered a full eight glacial cycles, putting global the transformation of austral summer to austral Hardly on any map yet, , 75°S warming in perspective. winter," wrote Simon Herniman. "At these lati- 123°E, is not too far south (and indeed the sun Old timers may remember Dome Charlie, as tudes the rate at which night steals minutes from disappeared only on May 4) but its high altitude it was called, where two C-130 crashed in 1974 the day is accelerated. It seems as if you can tell (3,260m) make for a pretty cold and unforgiving and were later fixed and flown out by the VXE- that each successive evening is darker and each place. By April we had already reached a tem- 6 team. Few visitors came to Dome Charlie in morning later." perature of -76°C, still far from the -84°C the 1980s, but in 1993 the French started tra- They also faced the mementos left by the expected later in the season. The site of Dome C versing from the coastal station of Dumont summer crew, who according to tradition leave is interesting for various reasons: high altitude, d’Urville. In 1996 a summer camp opened as a booby traps for those staying behind. This win- very low snow accumulation, absence of auro- joint project between the Italian and French ter's gifts included hidden alarm clocks timed to ras (good for astronomers but not so much for polar institutes (PNRA & IPEV). Scientific go off every 30 minutes, beds filled with ping- the larger public), very flat terrain, low winds research started in earnest that year and it was pong balls, powder and scientific apparatus; and turbulence, absence of ice motion and final- decided to build a permanent station. doors hinged at the top rather than the side; and ly easy communication with geostationary satel- Construction started in 1999 and proceeded a fully packed skidoo and sledge parked in the lites. quickly during the three months summers. The loft. Last year, as the personnel was selected for two main buildings are raised on hydraulic feet The winter period is much more communal the first winter, there was still a lot of uncertain- to avoid having the station disappear under than the hectic summer season and Rothera life ties about whether the construction would be snow over the years. now resembles a combination of the 'Waltons' finished in time. And indeed it wasn’t. Summer One is a quiet building with the bedrooms, and the 'Discovery Channel'. Meanwhile the construction workers were still working on the laboratories and a hospital. The other building is winter science program continues undaunted by buildings on the morning the last plane was to ‘noisy’ with workshops, a gym, a TV room and lower temperatures and increased darkness and leave. a 3-stars panoramic restaurant.The power gener- continues to deliver world class research. The start of the winter was pretty hectic as ators and water recycler are in a large container Meteorology, upper atmospheric studies, terres- the new station building wasn’t yet operational. next to the building. Also outside are the many trial biology, marine biology and the dive pro- The generator wasn’t running, there was no fuel tanks, water tanks and the garage also acting gram all continue over the winter period along water, the kitchen was bare and there was no as a balloon inflation shed. We now go to the the with essential base duties. hospital. We lived in an increasingly colder sum- closed summer camp, half a mile away, only to Due to the low levels of light from the station mer camp for three weeks before moving to our grab missing equipment. and clear air, they have a good view of meteor new, shiny building, where work was pretty storms, intense in the first months to get everything up “In fact I thought I saw two shooting stars and running. The buildings were still filled with Rothera and wished upon them,” wrote Rob Smith, “but construction equipment, so we spent weeks Compiled by Sun staff from reports by Jo they were only satellites. It's wrong to wish on moving it out and moving the supplies in from Coldron, Simon Herniman, Rob Smith space hardware.” 12 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 Building BIG for BIG balloons Story and photos by Eli Shorey Above, the Special to The Antarctic Sun framework for Tucked in a cove on the McMurdo Ice the two payload Shelf, the long-duration balloon facility is buildings rises in the night. The creating its own weather. buildings will The only fog in the area is in the little provide facilities cove, where the tops of the 12m buildings for the annual rise above the haze. Water vapor, a product long-duration of combustion, freezes and falls softly. In balloon projects the frozen mist, 17 workers waddle around launched from the site encumbered by layers of clothing. the ice near Construction started in mid-February on . the $4 million project. The six buildings are being built for NASA to house Long Distance Balloons (LDB) launched each summer from Williams Field. The balloons rise and ride Antarctic winds circling over Each building has its own identifying Building on an ice shelf has its own dif- the continent at 40,000m, carrying experi- color at the base. The largest are the two ficulties. Small cracks open and close in ments that would otherwise need to be payload buildings, one painted forest the ice around the job site throughout the launched in a space shuttle. green and the other weathered copper. day. This makes leveling the building a The construction site near the Scott Base They are 12m high and 18m long to constant chore. The frequent wind piles transition is scenic, sitting between a cliff accommodate the large instruments car- snow into drifts, often burying the sup- and a group of pressure ridges that appear as ried by the balloons. Their 9m doors fold plies. waves, frozen on their way to shore. Mt. and swing inward. When completed, the Since the buildings are constructed on Erebus smokes in the background. payload buildings will weigh between skis, no part of the building is below The six buildings won’t stay there. They 54,400kg and 59,000kg. ground. This creates a problem of stability are built on heated skis so they can be Smaller buildings hold the rigging when high winds blow across the ice shelf. moved to the balloon launch site each sum- (blue), telemetry (redwood), generator, A 55sqm door on an unskinned building mer. Come mid-October, several D-8 water and restroom. Radar domes will be can act as a sail. To keep the buildings Caterpillars will tow the buildings 8km to installed on the roof of the telemetry from sailing away, eight anchors were Williams Field where they will be arranged building to track the balloons. Also 80 per- attached to each, sunk two feet into the in a row connected by trusses. At the end of cent of the computers will be in the build- ice. Permanent anchorages will be summer the buildings will be moved again ing. The smaller buildings will weigh installed at Williams Field, with links of and stored on snow berms. about 34,000kg each. chain added as the snow piles up. Powering up: New generation to make McMurdo more current As McMurdo Station glows in winter four new generators will be able to supply darkness, workers prepare room for new all McMurdo's power needs. During the generators to keep the lights on. winter, when many buildings are shut down The six existing generators are all about and the power needs are less, McMurdo 35,000 hours beyond their expected 65,000 could at times operate with only one of the hour lifespan. 1640kW generators. In December construction workers After the powerful new generators are began adding a room to the water plant at running in Oct. 2006, the 1130kW genera- McMurdo Station. The expansion will tors will be used as peaking units to pick up house two new 1640 kW diesel generators, any excess requirements. The Water Plant's which should be churning out the watts by generators will operate in rotation with the Jan. 2006. Power Plant generators to provide for the "The new gens in the water plant (along Photo by Skip Mackison / Special to The Antarctic Sun station's power needs. They will also pro- with a rental unit we call a cat-in-a-box) will A worker walks through the steel frame for vide emergency backup, with the ability to power McMurdo until phase two is com- new rooms on the McMurdo water plant, power the entire station if needed. plete" said Mike Papula, RPSC Project which will house backup generators. A reverse osmosis unit from the water Manager, who has been working on the pro- the generators began producing electricity plant will be moved to the power plant ject since early in 2003. He joined the pro- for the station. Since then, three to four of building, providing backup water genera- ject midway, since design work on the new the generators have run at a time, depending tion. The swap will provide emergency power plant began in 2001. on the time of year. backup, so if either the water or power plant With the new generators, plus the cat-in- The old generators will be replaced with building was unavailable either building a-box, temporarily powering the station, the two 1640kW and two 1130kW diesel gener- could produce both water and power. existing 850kW generators can be removed ators. Papula grinned as he described the Both buildings will also get paint jobs, while the power plant building is renovated. new generators, twice as powerful as the covering the current hodge-podge of weath- The power plant was built by 1982, when old. Under normal operations, two of the er-worn finishes with a fresh coat. June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun •13

The IceCube drill, deployment tower and hose assembly ready to be put to use at the South Pole. Photo courtesy of IceCube / Special to The Antarctic Sun IceCube - One hole done, 79 more to go By Kristan Hutchison verse undetected. Though the subatomic origins of neutrinos in the sky, scientists Sun staff particles are common, they have no charge; need to detect millions. With hot water and a hose fit for a giant, barely any mass and rarely react with any- “Neutrinos travel like bullets through a drillers melted the first hole for the world’s thing. About 10 million neutrinos will zip rainstorm,” Halzen said. “Immense instru- largest neutrino detector. through your body as you read this sen- ments are required to find neutrinos in suf- They sprayed 85C water straight down tence, but only one in a lifetime will stop ficient numbers to trace their origin.” into the ice for 58 hours in January, melting there, according to Francis Halzen, a IceCube will expand AMANDA more a hole 2.5km deep before lowering in a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor than tenfold and detect 300,000 neutrinos a string of volleyball-sized detectors. of physics and principal investigator for the year when it is finished in 2010. “It was our first year and I think it was IceCube project. “As the detector grows you get more great to get a hole,” said system engineer This lack of interaction is both a blessing and more information and the picture gets Jeff Cherwinka. “The difference between and a curse for astrophysicists. Neutrinos more clear,” Halzen said. one hole and four holes is substantial, but arrive at the Earth unchanged, like messages The picture he and other researchers the difference between one hole and no sent from the outer reaches of the universe. expect to see will include gamma ray bursts, holes is infinite.” But the messages are in an invisible ink. active galaxies, black holes and the dark The hole is the first of 80 that will even- They show up only when a neutrino crashes matter researchers now say makes up 90 tually perforate a cubic kilometer of into a proton, creating another kind of parti- percent of the universe. Antarctic ice. When it’s done, IceCube will cle called a muon. An existing experiment at “One of the most exciting things about be nearly invisible from above – just a field the South Pole proved these blue flashes IceCube is that we just don’t know what we of flat ice blending seamlessly into the could be detected by light-sensitive optical will find,” said astrophysicist Spencer Antarctic plateau. But 4,800 glass eyes will modules frozen deep in the ice. IceCube is Klein, who heads the IceCube physics be frozen into the ice below, each watching the next generation of that earlier experi- analysis team for U.S. Department of for a spark of blue light indicating one of the ment, the Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National universe’s smallest and most elusive parti- Detector Array (AMANDA). Laboratory. “When you open up a new win- cles had a fatal collision. With 750 optical modules in 19 holes, dow into the universe, you open up the pos- Amanda catches one blue flash every seven sibility of entirely new discoveries.” Phantom particles hours, Halzen said. That’s thousands of neu- Usually neutrinos whiz around the uni- trinos since 1997, but in order to map the See IceCube on page 14 Looking down in the dust for clues to the past By Kristan Hutchison climatologists, however, is the extremely high Sun staff quality of the dust data, which serves as a proxy Even before the first IceCube hole was done, for changes in the ancient Earth’s climate.” researchers were pulling useful data from it. For the Dust Logger it was something of a As the researchers lowered a string of neutri- homecoming. The idea to build the Dust Logger no detectors into the hole, a separate instrument came out of an ice hole at the South Pole in the at the bottom of the string shone a focused laser late 1980s. At the time, Price and other astro- beam sideways, measuring layers of dust in the physicists were working on the Antarctic Muon ice. Scientists at the surface watched the ashes and Neutrino Detector Array, IceCube’s prede- from volcanic eruptions and dust signifying cessor. In order to establish the clarity of the ice changes in world temperatures flash by on their their instruments would be looking through, they computer screens as the Dust Logger dropped embedded a series of lights and sensors into it. deeper into the ice and further back in time. It Some of the astrophysicists, particularly Price, finally bottomed out at 80,000 years ago. took an interest in how the dust layers they “By correcting for the dust that would other- found correlate to the climate history. Price wise blur their trajectories, IceCube can map the decided to shrink the instruments they’d devel- directions of sources of high-energy neutrinos to oped to test the ice for AMANDA into a probe better than one degree and thus locate some of that would fit into holes left by ice cores and Photo by Kurt Woschnagg / Special to The Antarctic Sun the most explosive objects in the universe,” said other drilling operations. Post-doctorate fellow Ryan Bay, left, holds the Dust Buford Price, a physics professor from the Ryan Bay and graduate student Nathan Bramall Logger as he and IceCube scientist University of California Berkeley who is part of Albrecht Karle prepare to deploy it. the IceCube collaboration. “Just as interesting to See Dustlog on page 14 14 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 turned-climatologists were From page 13 pleased with the fine detail the IceCube Dust Logger showed and even Drilling fast and deep more pleased by clear signs of at First the 80 holes must be drilled. In concept, drilling ice least three significant volcanic ash is simple – hot water melts a hole in the ice. Making it work layers, some a centimeter thick. on the large scale needed is difficult. Even the drill used for “We were looking for some- AMANDA was too small. Four years ago the Ice Core thing totally different and it just Drilling Service in Madison, Wis., began designing and kind of hit us between the eyes,” building a new enhanced hot water drill, funded by the Bay said. “Those are the discover- National Science Foundation. The drill has been turned over ies you like, the unexpected ones. to IceCube and this season was the first chance to test it. Those are often the best.” The goal is to penetrate 2.4 km into the ice in 30 hours, The ash may be from Antarctic compared to the 100 hours it took to drill each hole for eruptions, which show up as AMANDA. To do that the enhanced hot water drill has a “dark, gunky layers that you can longer hose and a higher flow rate. Hot water flows through see with your eyes,” Bay said. the new drill at 760 liters a minute, compared to Amanda’s In West Antarctica the Dust 380 liters, basically doubling the drilling speed. The hose is Logger found about 50 layers of more than 2.5km long, allowing them to drill from the top to Photo by Kurt Woschnagg / Special to The Antarctic Sun volcanic ash, of which 23 the bottom without stopping to add sections. matched sulfates found in East The hose also had to be strong enough not to burst from The Dust Logger descends into the Antarctica. The Dust Logger also the pressure required to pump water for kilometers. Made out IceCube hole on Jan. 28. registers faint ash layers that of a heavy-duty rubber, reinforced with Aramid, the hose had might be missed by researchers to be special ordered from Italy. At 11,340kg, the hose still From page 13 looking at an ice core. The faintest requires an auxiliary cable for support, even though the load Dustlog volcanic traces at is reduced to 6,000lb due to the buoyancy of the water in the designed the instrument, which may have been from eruptions hole. records the amount of light that re- nearer the equator that were large “It’s a pretty high-tech tool,” Cherwinka said. “It’s one of enters the hole after bouncing enough to send ash around the the most critical parts of the system and we’ve only been able around in the ice and catalogues it world. Bay said there is a strong to find one vendor who can make it.” centimeter-by-centimeter as a correlation between volcanic ash Most components of the drill had been checked to see that function of depth. deposits and records of abrupt cli- they worked, but there was nowhere convenient with ice deep “It worked way better than we mate change over the past enough to actually test the drill before bringing it to the South thought it would,” Bay said. 100,000 years seen in Greenland Pole. Though they’d hoped to drill several holes the first year, “Sometimes you just don’t know ice. just getting one done and proving the drill would work was a until you look what you can get. This may indicate the volcanos success, said Jim Yeck, the IceCube project director. It’s taken on a life of its own trigger climate instability, or that “We met all of the high-level milestones, including the now.” climate change causes volcano most significant one, the installation of a string,” Yeck said. Bay and Price have used the activity. It’s a debate going back It wasn’t easy. Almost 1 million pounds of cargo had to be Dust Logger in mechanically at least 30 years and the detailed shipped to the South Pole in LC-130s for the drilling to start. drilled holes in Greenland and in data from the Dust Logger may The drill alone took 30 flights. With only a three-month win- Antarctica at Siple Dome. Several help resolve it. dow of weather good enough to work at the South Pole, 24 times they’ve deployed it into “We may be in a position to do cargo handlers, electricians, engineers and drillers worked in holes where ice cores had been some neat stuff because we have shifts. By the time the drill was assembled, the drill team had removed. The Dust Logger has such a highly resolved record only two weeks to melt a hole and lower the first IceCube the advantage of looking over an now,” Bay said. string. area of several square meters Price and Bay are using data Deep drilling of the first hole was not going very fast and around the hole, so it can reveal if from the first IceCube hole in two the drill was veering off course. A thousand meters into the a particularly thick or thin ice papers they’re currently writing. hole a decision was made to pull up the drill to investigate the layer in the 4-inch-diameter core They’ve already published papers problem. As the drill sat idle on Jan. 17, water began to freeze is caused by sastrugi. The Dust based on Dust Logger data in the in the return line. While the drill crew was trying to solve this Logger is also immediate, profil- Proceedings National Academy of problem an experienced driller was hit by a cable and injured. ing an entire hole in eight hours. It Sciences in 2004 and Geophysical The driller was evacuated from the South Pole and in a takes two years to transport an ice Research Letters in 2001. hospital within 22 hours. Meanwhile, drilling was halted for core back to the lab and process it. Bay is building two more Dust several days to reassess its safety. “If you can do a Dustlog of a Loggers to send into IceCube “It was a really bad day,” Cherwinka said. hole you have an ice core in, they holes in the coming season. The safety assessments found the problem was a cable that complement each other very nice- Eventually, he and Price hope to had been on the ground and fell into the hole. A new proce- ly,” Bay said. map the dust layers in 10 holes dure for handling the cable was developed and practiced and Though the Dust Logger was spread across IceCube so they can then drilling operations resumed at a new location 8 meters conceived at the South Pole, this tell whether the layers vary from away. was the first time it was used one side to the other. “It wasn’t a matter of ignoring something or taking a short- there. As it descended, Bay was “The ability of the Dust Logger cut or misbehaving,” Cherwinka said. “We just didn’t recog- able to compare the layers of dust to study climate and volcanism as nize this particular cable on the ground as a hazard and now to those found when AMANDA well as to sharpen the images of we do, so it’s an easily remedied problem.” was drilled. The dust concentra- neutrino sources exemplifies the When they started drilling again there were only a few tion at each depth tells the temper- unexpected spin-offs of basic ature at the corresponding epoch research,” Price noted. See IceCube on page 15 in the past. The astrophysicists- June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 15 Eyes to the skies Antarctic workers watch solar displays while the sun’s down

By Karl Horeis Special to The Antarctic Sun A few years ago at McMurdo Station Deborah Morris saw the most exciting Southern Lights she’s ever seen. Friends spotted them through a window from inside, but they had to go see them in person. “It was as if I was lying under a glass Photo by Anthony Powell / Special to The Antarctic Sun table and God was pouring green sand on the top,” she said. “It was swirling and cas- Green light streaks the sky above Scott Base during an auroral display this winter. cading down in streaks and changing at this unbelievable pace. It was beautiful.” get to see them all day, everyday sometimes of light, half-submerged and wriggling. Now Morris, along with fellow so it’s pretty special.” Burton’s e-mail updates often include McMurdo resident Mike Poole, leads regu- Burton sends out regular aurora updates history and scientific background on the lar aurora-watching trips out of town. The via e-mail to interested residents. She mysterious lights. She wrote that Norse two, both currently living at McMurdo, informs them about windows of high geo- mythology makes reference to the bridge have organized three trips so far this season. magnetic activity and the positions of coro- Bifrost, a burning, trembling arch across the They usually take about 12 people in two nal holes — letting them know when to look sky, over which the gods could travel from Pisten Bully tracked vehicles, leaving after for impressive aurora. heaven to Earth. It is likely that the inspira- dinner and heading up toward Castle Rock, “(I send the e-mail notices) just because tion for the bridge was the aurora, she said. away from the light of town. I like to know when auroras are,” she said. Chinese and European dragon legends, “It’s incredibly easy - working and living Auroras are caused when electrically too, may have their origin in aurora activity. in a community full of street lights - to for- charged particles (mostly electrons) acceler- The wonders of the long Antarctic night are get that we have a beautiful night sky above ate along magnetic field lines in Earth’s not limited to Southern Lights, however. us,” Morris said. upper atmosphere, where they collide with Morris and Poole also encourage their 240 Many U.S. Antarctic Program employ- gas atoms, causing the atoms to give off neighbors to watch for “Iridium Flares.” ees feel that, along with the hot tub, auroras light. This happens mostly near the poles, These are bright flashes of light from sun- are the best part about the winters. where the magnetic field is strongest. light reflecting off of the mirror-like anten- “It’s a unique thing about being in From the ground, this looks like sheets of nae of orbiting Iridium satellites. No one Antarctica,” said Amber Burton, who is run- light waving or even shafts coming down. living in Antarctica now should see the sun ning MacOps at McMurdo this winter. “You Some describe it as like a swimming snake until August - but they can see sunlight reflected to them in Iridium flares. took 58 hours, making it twice as fast as “In the middle of winter that’s the only IceCube From page 14 the AMANDA holes. But with 79 holes to way to see the sun — that’s the way I think go the drill team needs more speed. of it,” said Morris. The McMurdo Station days left before the drill team was sched- “We’re looking at ways to improve the intranet page provides informative links uled to leave the South Pole. They worked speed and I definitely think it’s doable,” about when the flares are visible locally. 12-hour shifts until the hole was complete Cherwinka said. With the four-month-long night of win- Jan. 27 and began packing away the equip- Though IceCube will take at least five ter, Antarcticans have special opportunity to ment. years more to complete, the first string of look for meteorites, satellites, star constella- “The drillers in particular, those guys optical detectors is already working along- tions and planets. were working really, really hard and they side AMANDA’s 19 holes. If IceCube “Oh and not everyone knows it, but there were up against quite a few hurdles,” said drilling stays on schedule it will take over are ‘Moon Dogs’ just like there are Sun Ryan Bay, a post-doctoral fellow from as the world’s largest neutrino telescope Dogs,” Morris said. Sundogs, also known as University of California Berkeley who was next season. It was already dubbed the parhelions, are bright spots of light seen at the South Pole working on the IceCube world’s weirdest telescope. around the sun. The term is also used to project. “It was a tough season, but there “Nobody who built a new instrument describe solar halos, which are light reflect- was a payoff in the end.” like this could predict what they will actu- ed off ice crystals. They are only produced Most of the drill crew will return for the ally do with it,” Halzen said. “And what in clouds cold enough to be frozen — mean- next summer season, when the goal is to they do with it later is always much more ing they happen in Antarctic and artic finish 10 more holes. The successful hole interesting than what they promised.” regions more than other places. 16 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 ~ Winter quilters aren’t quitters ~

By Kristan Hutchison “All the women were great, since I was Sun staff the only guy,” Fowler said. For some, the best way to get through an Erika Neal joined because she thought it Antarctic winter is a stitch at a time. would be fun to learn to quilt. During the past five winters, a few peo- “It’s been great and I feel confident ple at McMurdo Station have spent their enough to maybe try and make my own one afterwork hours sewing a quilt together and day,” she said. then auctioning it for charity. They gather The completed quilt top is a snowstorm with needles and thread, in a modern ver- of multi-colored flakes falling across a deep sion of the traditional quilting bees. blue background that resembles the starry The idea began the winter of 2001 when winter skies. Paula Holmes, an experienced quilter, “The squares look great together on the began teaching Caprice Teske the basics. quilt, but they still have a lot of individual Other women became interested and soon expression,” said Jennifer Kemper. there were a total of eight women working Now the quilters gather three or four at a on the first charity quilt. time after work, to hand-stitch the top layer Photo courtesy of Christine Gamble-Powell / Special to The Antarctic Sun to the batting and backing. The quilt will be “The original idea was to get together Scott Fowler works on his quilt patch. and learn to quilt, something like the other raffled at the end of winter and the money craft gatherings on station,” said Lorie actual snowflake, recreating the image in raised – usually about $2,000 – goes to a Poole, who has worked on four of the five pastel fabrics. charity chosen by the quilters. In the past the quilt projects. When the question of what to “I really like seeing the finished product money has been given to Cholmondeley do with the finished quilt came up, they and how the very different designs and Children’s Home in Christchurch, decided to raffle it for a charity. styles all end up complementing each Alzheimers, Multiple Sclerosis, and AIDS “Each quilt since has been so beautiful other,” Magyar said. groups in the U.S., and “Naturaleza,” a that the quilt group has gained notoriety and Of the 24 who first showed interest this charity that helps cultures around the world has become a tradition,” Poole said. The year, 14 people stuck with it, including one become self-sustaining. quilters now have a donated Husqvarna- man. Other people meet to sew, knit or do Viking sewing machine, which is set up in “It was fun to get together with every- other handicrafts over the winter, but the an empty dorm room along with an ironing one,” said Scott Fowler, a maintenance spe- quilters are unique because of the time it board. cialist in FEMC who learned to sew this takes to create a full-sized quilt. This year Poole and Christine Gamble- winter, starting with threading a needle. “I “It’s a time commitment of many Powell organized the quilting project, first screamed a few times.” months,” said Gamble-Powell, “but the teaching people who were new to quilting. Luckily, he had plenty of more experi- sense of pride and accomplishment is well “It’s very gratifying to teach the quilting enced seamstresses to guide him. worth the effort.” techniques, then see what everyone creates,” Gamble- Christine Gamble-Powell Powell said. “I think this is one assisted with this story. of the best parts of the project – seeing how people interpret the theme and how they catch on to the techniques.” This year the theme is “win- ter snowflakes.” Each quilter chose fabrics for their square from a collection people have brought down over the years and used it to appliqué a unique snowflake on a darker back- ground. In past years the quilts have had familiar images from around McMurdo, including penguins, the Chapel of the Snows and Observation Hill. “Anything can be duplicated in fabric – it’s like an artist Jen Kemper and Christine Gamble- Powell pin the finished top to the using paint to paint a picture,” batting and backing for this winter’s said Gamble-Powell. quilt. With the theme “winter “This year we encouraged snowflakes,” the quilters created a the use of bright colors, a depar- warm and colorful snowstorm. ture from the traditional ‘white’ snowflake idea.” Renee Magyar created her square from a photograph of an June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 17

Left, RPSC Marine Science Technician, Eric Hutt (left) and University of Maine biologist Bruce Sidell (right) prepare to deploy a baited fish trap off the stern of the Laurence M. Gould in Dallmann Bay. Below, Bruce Sidell on the back deck of the Gould.

Photos by K. Borley / Special to The Antarctic Sun Some like it cold Photo by Kathleen Gavahan / Special to The Antarctic Sun By Kristan Hutchison bright yellow latex, allowing them to see nitric oxide could trigger the dense growth Sun staff and study the intricate network. In doing of blood vessels and another adaptation he Spending 14 million years below freez- so, they discovered dramatic differences and his coworkers have found - the ing does strange things to a creature. between red-blooded fish and those with- increase of mitochondria in the cells. In the case of some Antarctic fish, their out hemoglobin. Jody Wujcik, a graduate In Antarctic fish, mitochondria often blood turned white. student from the University of Maine, make up about 35 percent of the volume Nineteenth century sealers and whalers continued the work in Palmer this season. of a cell, much denser than in other fish. called the strange white-blooded fish they “That has led to our recognizing this as Mitochondria convert nutrients into ener- caught in Antarctic waters “devil fish” or a really interesting system to examine and gy, so having more makes it easier for the “icefish.” The 16 species of channichthyid identify the factors that control the icefish to use the little oxygen they get icefish are the only adult vertebrates process of vascular growth and regenera- efficiently. known to lack hemoglobin, the protein tion,” Sidell said. “That process is proba- Kimberly Borley, another University of that makes blood red and carries oxygen. bly fairly similar in all animals.” Maine graduate student, has been working The lack of hemoglobin reduces the abili- As a researcher, Sidell is interested in on the molecular biology of factors in ty of blood to carry oxygen to less than 10 understanding the process, but medical pathways leading to the increase in blood percent of normal, like the difference clinicians see potential applications if vessels and mitochondria. between having a shopping cart or having Sidell’s research brings a better under- One way to test whether it is the nitric to carry all your groceries in your hands. standing of what controls the growth of oxide will be to give the fish a medication After 14 years studying how and why blood vessels. If doctors could slow or to repress nitric oxide. The medication the channichthyid icefish evolved as they stop the growth of blood vessels to tumors would be delivered at a constant level did, University of Maine biologist Bruce it could be another tool in fighting tumors. through an osmotic pump in the fish’s Sidell believes the loss of hemoglobin was Sidell thinks the critical molecule trig- belly, a technique Sidell tested on several less an adaptation than an evolutionary gering the growth of blood vessels might fish this season in Palmer. mistake. The icefish appear to have suc- be nitric oxide, the same chemical that “I’m pleased to say that as of right now ceeded despite the loss, perhaps because relaxes the coronary arteries of heart this animal looks perfectly happy in the there are so few competitors in the patients when they take nitroglycerine. tank,” Sidell said in May. “He’s swim- Antarctic. The cold water is also oxygen- Most animals produce nitric oxide, but it ming around with an osmotic pump in his rich, making it easier for the icefish to get quickly interacts with oxy-hemoglobin or belly.” enough oxygen, even without hemoglo- oxy-myoglobin, giving it a short lifespan An Italian researcher, Filippo Garofalo bin. in the body. from the University of Calabria, came The icefish compensated for their evo- Since icefish don’t have hemoglobin, down with Sidell to test the effects of lutionary handicap in other ways – with Sidell hypothesizes the nitric oxide has changing nitric oxide levels on the hearts larger hearts pumping more blood through less to interact with and builds to a higher of white-hearted and red-hearted icefish. more blood vessels than their red-blooded concentration. Six of the icefish species Another modification within the icefish brethren. also don’t produce myoglobin, a protein cells appears to be a protein involved in Sidell and biologist Joe Eastman used a that binds and stores oxygen in heart mus- the relaxation of muscles. The protein, technique during a research cruise last cle until it’s needed within the cell. called parvalbumin, appears to have been year to fill a fish’s blood vessels with a Sidell now hypothesizes the build up of See Cold on page 18 18 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

From page 1 Shaldril More drills ready “Shaldril’s designed to go in any direction. The ship maneu- Another drilling project, into difficult areas, where there vered better than expected, allow- this one based on the ice shelf, are very exciting science prob- ing the drill team to produce a will do final site survey work at lems to be solved,” said 110-meter hole and recover more the two drilling sites near Anderson, lead scientist for than 80 percent of the core from McMurdo Station in the Shaldril. “We could go to every it. 2005/2006 season. bay and fjord, and just drill “It was just phenomenal,” Then the multinational away. We’ve proven that.” Anderson said. “So we basically Antarctic Drilling program, The cruise from March 31 to proved in the first few days, that, ANDRILL, can drill through April 24 was the first opportuni- yeah, we can drill holes; piece of the ice and into the sediment ty to test the drill as it’s config- cake.” record below in October 2006. ured on the National Science They still had to contend with A hot water drill will penetrate Foundation research vessel the Antarctic winter. After the first through about 170 meters of Nathaniel B. Palmer. The NBP hole, the ship went through 20 ice in the McMurdo Ice Shelf wasn’t originally designed as a days of stormy weather, with near Williams Field. drilling platform, but it is ice- winds blowing to 120kph and ice The first site camp, con- strengthened, allowing it to go forming around them. structed from 13 converted into areas the drilling ships “Obviously under those condi- insulated shipping containers, can’t. The NBP would need to tions it’s virtually impossible to was shipped down in January. hold a precise location for sev- do anything,” Anderson said. Photo by Mike Watson / Special to The Antarctic Sun A new drill rig, built in eral days while carrying a load But even the bad weather was a Brisbane, Australia, and a three times heavier than normal. Drilling through the night, useful test of Shaldril’s limits. The Shaldril floods the back deck drilling platform built in “We had a serious question crew found the ship could hold a Christchurch, New Zealand, as to whether or not the ship of the Nathaniel B. Palmer position in winds up to 64kph. with light. are being integrated before could maneuver, and especially “That’s pretty darn good. That’s testing and shipping to in the kinds of winds and ice conditions you have about twice what we’d hoped for,” Anderson McMurdo. in Antarctica,” said Anderson. “That was the big said. "Things are ticking along,” question we set out to solve this year.” Though the shakedown cruise took place in said project manager Jim The question was answered at their first drill the Antarctic winter, Shaldril is intended for use Cowie. “We’re on schedule for site - Maxwell Bay in the South Shetland Islands, in the summer and its first full test will be during getting the rest of the gear where the ship was sheltered from the wind and a cruise in February 2006 to the James Ross down on the resupply ship in ice. For four days of drilling the NBP held to a Basin in the northwest Weddell Sea. January 2006 so that drilling single spot, using a new Doppler positioning sys- can begin in October that year." tem to keep from moving more than two meters See Shaldril on page 19

Cold From page 17 modified to work better at cold tempera- atures,” Sidell said. tures. Sidell has been working with bio- Despite any evolutionary handicaps, physicist Timothy Moerland at Florida the icefish is so well-adapted to the cold State University to figure out exactly what that it overheats in water warmer than the changes in the parvalbumin’s structure minus 0.5C. For Sidell that means fishing are that allow it to function better in the in the Antarctic winter. In the summer the cold. aquarium at Palmer Station gets too warm In 2003 another of Sidell’s graduate to keep the icefish alive for very long. students, Jamie Hendrickson, was able to Even in the winter, 10 to 15 percent of the collect, clone and sequence the parvalbu- fish Sidell catches die in the first few days min gene. The gene has been inserted into after they are captured. bacterial cultures which are now produc- “They are fairly delicate animals and ing icefish parvalbumin protein in his lab you lose some to attrition in the first few at the University of Maine. By comparing days of capture,” said Sidell. the gene sequences for the icefish parval- This year Sidell was at Palmer Station bumin with mammal parvalbumin, Sidell from late April to early June, taking sever- will identify which amino acids differ. al short fishing trips on the Laurence M. Then Sidell and Moerland can selectively Gould to catch the fish with 18-foot nets change just one amino acid in the and traps. Some fish can be caught in traps sequence at a time, testing each one to see near Palmer Station, but the closest place how the modified parvalbumin functions. to catch the icefish is in Dallmann Bay, This technique should allow them to pin- about nine hours by boat from Palmer. point which amino acids in the gene With help from the Gould crew and work- sequence are responsible for the adapta- ers from Palmer Station, they fished round Photo by K. Mar / Special to The Antarctic Sun tion. the clock, hauling in several hundred spec- Graduate student Jody Wujcik performs a “Essentially this will give us an idea of imens. procedure in which a latex compound is what the design rules are for making a pro- used to replace the blood of an icefish, tein that will function well at cold temper- NSF-funded research in this story: enabling measurements of blood vessels. Bruce Sidell, University of Maine June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 19

Shaldril From page 18 That core will target rare sediment records in an area thought to be the last refuge for plants and animals as glaciers were covering the rest of the continent 20 million to 30 million years ago. Seymour Island has been a Rosetta stone for paleon- tologists, who’ve brought back fragments of marsupials, invertebrates and pollen from the island. The fossil records found on the island only go to the Eocene, 34 million to 55 million years ago, when the continent began to glaciate. “Just when things are starting to get interesting, and the continent’s starting to ice over and the climate’s really starting to get severe, the stratigraphic record just dips right out into the ocean,” Anderson said. Photo by A. Injac / Special to The Antarctic Sun Shaldril should be able to reach those Above, Drilling Superintendent Andy submerged records, providing a fossil Frazer demonstrates how to use the sam- record from the period of the most profound pling tools. Right, a section of sediment change in Antarctica. The drill cut through core collected on the Shaldril cruise. about six inches of granite during a drilling test on the winter cruise, proving it could cycle. They’ve found climate on the pierce the glacial till to reach older sediment Antarctic Peninsula is not nearly as stable as buried below. thought 10 years ago, but the evidence is The April test-drilling also revealed a very subtle. couple challenges to be solved before the Anderson expects more dramatic evi- next cruise. When the drill tried to pierce the dence from the new Maxwell Bay core, glacial sediment, it was repeatedly clogged which would support the findings from the by fist-sized cobbles. The rocks caught in peninsula. The South Shetland Islands are the bit and blocked the flow of mud and like the tropics of Antarctica, with lichens, water. The Seacore drillers plan to bring a moss and other vegetation, and may provide solid rod next time to clear the blockages. a sedimentary record of the most extreme Then the drill should be able to cut through temperature fluctuations in the Antarctic the hard glacial deposits to reach older sed- Peninsula region. Photo by Ashley Lowe / Special to The Antarctic Sun iments beneath. The Maxwell Bay sediment core is a Refrigerated in plastic tubes, the 7.5cm “It’s going to open up a lot of potential grayish-green mix of clay, silt and fossilized research for a lot of people who have just diameter cores were shipped to the Antarctic sealife. Julia Wellner, a postdoctorate Research Facility in Tallahassee, Fla., where been waiting for this type of rig to be avail- researcher working with Anderson, is radio- able,” said Patricia Manley, a geologist from they are made available to other scientists. carbon dating pieces of shell pulled from the All this is just a start. Anderson spent 15 Middlebury College working with core. Graduate student Steve Bohaty from Anderson on the project. “Especially those years doing seismic stratigraphic studies to the University of California Santa Cruz used find the best places to drill and has accumu- who want to be tying into material that’s remnants of a silica-shelled algae, called below this last glacial outwash.” lated a list of drill sites that would take five diatoms, to determine the sediment core is years to accomplish. His target areas include younger than 140,000 years old. Changes in the Ross Sea, Southern Weddell Sea and More than a test the diatom species and distribution through along the Antarctic Peninsula. Now that The 100-meter core was more than a test the sediment core also may indicate long- Shaldril has opened the door, he expects of the drill. Another principal investigator term variations in sea ice conditions and sea many more scientists will come forward on the project, Woody Wise of Florida State surface temperature. with their own proposals for other areas to University used micropaleontology to At the same time, Manley is looking at drill, ushering a wave of new discoveries. approximate the age of the strata, which the grain size, water content and other phys- “You do need a technological shift some- provides a record of the last 10,000 years ical properties of the sediment providing times to really foster a new age of discov- from the south Shetland area. clues to the climate at that time. ery,” said Anderson. “I’m very optimistic, “Personally I think that 100-meter core “If we’re looking at any kind of climate much more so than I was two months ago. I made the entire cruise worthwhile,” variability in the Holocene, it should be think Shaldril’s going to foster a lot of inter- Anderson said. “There’s some really inter- recorded in this core,” Manley said. est and there’s going to be a lot of proposal esting changes in that core; it’s going to Shorter cores were also collected in pressure from people that want to go down really reveal some interesting things.” Hubert Sound and Lapeyrere Bay. The three and drill some different age strata and test The most interesting revelations may be cores run a transect from subpolar to polar, some very important problems.” about climate change on the Antarctic and range from east of the peninsula to west. Peninsula to the south. Gene Domack, Amy One of Manley’s students will compare the Levanter and other scientists have looked at cores looking for climate variations from NSF-funded research in this story: one location to the next. John Anderson, Rice University, the Holocene record along the Antarctic www.shaldril.rice.edu and Peninsula, trying to understand whether a “It’s really looking at the climate in a www.arf.fsu.edu/shaldril.cfm recent warming trend is part of a natural geographic sense,” Manley said. 20 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

Dome From page 1 fire station, medical, and the greenhouse - have already moved into the new South Pole station, which is scheduled for comple- tion in 2007. The weight room and fresh foods storage were taken out in Jan. 2004. “The dome looks big and empty now,” said Brien Barnett, a winter prep cook at the Pole and former Sun staffer. “There’s this gigantic hole to your right.” While the dome no longer has a use at the South Pole, it still has a place in the memories of most people who have been to the Pole, particularly Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 71. This battalion of Seabees was formed in 1966 and assigned to build the few years later. The dome replaced the original South Pole sta- tion erected on the snow surface during the austral summer of 1956-57. By 1970 the modular structures were buried under 6m of snow. The weight of snow from above was causing the buildings to crack. “You knew that it was beginning to creep in on you. In fact, out in the passage- way you could see the walls were actually kind of bulging in because of the weight of the snow,” said John Perry, the officer in charge of the battalion shoring up the old station as plans were being made to build the dome. He then spent two years oversee- ing the dome construction from Washington, D.C. “It was a unique project and a unique structure that we took down there and that was constructed,” Perry said. “Those of us that had been involved in the program cer- Photo by Lee Mattis / Special to The Antarctic Sun tainly felt that we just kinda didn’t want to see it dissembled and thrown for scrap. We The Navy Construction Battalion (Seabees) work to erect the South Pole dome during the thought it would be nice if we could bring austral summer 1972-1973. that back and put it on display somewhere suggested they include the dome. having to worry about it.” where people could see it.” Hilderbrand and the other Seabees liked the To take apart the dome, workers will start But scrap was the most likely fate of the idea. After negotiations, the NSF agreed to from the top down, taking off the panels and dome several years ago when Larry it in concept. the structural members. The dome has 1448 Anderson heard a presentation about the In February, a representative from the I-beam struts with 84 bolts at each of 490 new station at an engineering conference in Seabees and an engineer involved in the connection points, Mattis said. The triangu- Seattle. Anderson, who had been involved original construction of the dome visited the lar openings created by the strut framework with the Dome construction as a Naval Civil South Pole to assess whether the dome are covered by 904 thin panels. Engineer Corps officer with NMCB71, could be reassembled in California. “There’s a fair amount of labor involved asked the presenter what was to be done “This was like the ultimate, going back in doing that” said Mattis, who estimates it with the dome he’d helped build. The to see a structure that I had worked on over will take a month of work depending on the answer was kind of a shrug. 30 years ago, and it’s still functioning, it’s number of people and equipment. There’s “I said golly, wouldn’t it be cool if they still performing,” said Lee Mattis, who was talk of having a Seabee team help take down were able to get this really important signif- last at the South Pole in 1973 as a 28-year the dome, possibly as early as the 2007- icant part of the history of both the Naval old engineer for Temcor. “The dome itself is 2008 season. Civil Engineer Corp, the Seabees and the in pretty good shape.” Many of the retired Seabees who put up National Science Foundation preserved,” Two decades later, Mattis still has the the dome would like to help take it down, or Anderson said. “To me it’s really kind of an original color-coded schematics for putting reassemble it in California. The men have iconic kind of thing. When you opened together the dome. He said the disassembly, strong memories of their months at the National Geographic for a long time that shipment and reassembly of the dome South Pole more than 30 years ago. was what you’d see about the Antarctic - the should not be a problem. “When I look back on it, I’m real proud,” dome.” “It’s an erector set,” Mattis said. “All the said Jim Heckman, a Seabee steelworker on Anderson had known for a couple of parts, they have color codes on them and the Dome for three seasons. “A lot of people years that the Seabees were planning to they’re also metal stamped, so there’s really are interested in the Antarctic and you hear rebuild their Port Hueneme museum and he no problem with identifying the parts or See Dome on page 21 June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 21 Beginning of the end of the Dome By Brien Barnett Special to The Antarctic Sun The decision to reduce the South Pole station footprint by dismantling the historic dome and the buildings beneath it has been made, so George Prehn's crew of six car- penters and helpers have been moving quickly to make it happen. But it hasn't been without a little senti- Demolition crews take ment. Prehn, the demolition crew foreman apart the old greenhouse. saw to that, telling his crews about the his- Above, George Prehn tory of the buildings and showing them - in hangs a sign “Bar is reverse - how construction standards had closed. Destruction per- sonnel only” on the changed over the years or were specially smoking lounge under the adapted to Pole as shown by the pieces they dome. removed from the four buildings they took apart this year. Photos courtesy of George Prehn / Special to The Antarctic Sun Before the demolition began, the dome weeks, the crew was finished in six. vated station and was not needed. By was a crowded place, filled with three main "What was impressing for me was hear- removing the old greenhouse, the station buildings, several smaller buildings and ing how hollow it was in the dome when was able to conserve power and water that many storage boxes and racks. that building came down," Prehn said. were cycling through the greenhouse sys- In late-February, the demolition crew The emptiness created a feeling that tem for no use. went to work, starting with "90 South", the something was out of place for those walk- Once those small buildings were fin- old bar above the old dining hall. Prehn ing past that point as they entered the dome. ished, the now-experienced crew turned on employed his standard demolition tech- The space was quickly filled with stuff as the old bio-med building under an arch next nique, taught to him at an early age by his storage is always at a premium on this sta- to the dome. Literally tons of things were father, a house remover. tion. removed as it had turned into a storage unit The Seabees originally built the dome. "I sent a couple pictures (of the spot with in the past few years. Many items were put The current plan is to salvage representative bare snow) to people who had been here into the open-air storage berms or were pieces of the buildings to be sent to the before and they said they shed a few tears," absorbed elsewhere. Seabee Museum at Port Hueneme, Prehn said. "I don't get attached to things The demolition is complete for this year, California. The interior of each building has like that, but I understand it." finishing several weeks ahead of schedule. been filmed to document the structure and After the old dining hall and bar, the Prehn and his crew are now helping com- floor plan for possible reconstruction. crew focused on the greenhouse and the fire plete the work list on the new elevated sta- Many of the sentimental pieces of the bar equipment shack. The gear for the firefight- tion. Most of the work done there so far and dining hall were packaged and prepared ers was moved to the back of the old power this year has been in several berthing for shipment to the museum. Once that was plant and the fire shack was dismantled, wings and the new communications area. complete, the building came down quickly, adding to the space at the entrance to the All work scheduled for this winter on the leaving 260sqm of bare snow and ice where dome. The greenhouse had been replaced by new station is expected to be finished in the dining hall had been. Slated for eight the new "growth chamber" inside the ele- time for summer.

Dome From page 20 a lot of people talk about things they’ve on the outside of the dome ham radio, said Heckman, seen on TV or articles they’ve read. It’s just to take off their jackets. who became a ham radio kind of neat to be able to tell them, yeah, I Inside, the dome got darker operator because of his time helped build it.” and darker as the triangular at the Pole. Anderson recalls When he arrived at the South Pole in panels were put in place, courting the woman who is 1971, the temperature was -61C. The cold said Bill Slayman, another now his wife through ham and elevation made it difficult to work, and ex-Seabee. Their breath radio phone patches. every half-hour the men had to retreat into a condensed on the inside of “Contact was always hut to warm up. They worked 12-hour the dome and snowed down. kind of sketchy,” Anderson shifts, with a half-day off on Sunday. “So much of what went said. “The ‘I love you; over’ Lumber would break because the moisture on down in Antarctic was so Photo by Bob Nyden / Special to The Antarctic Sun was out there for all the inside it froze. They couldn’t pick up a different, the kinds of chal- Seabees built the Last Chance world to see.” wrench or any other metal object barehand- lenges you face down Saloon from packing crates. The challenges and isola- ed or it would freeze to their flesh. The there,” Hilderbrand said. tion developed a strong hydraulic riveting equipment, called Huck “There are so many things that are different, camaraderie among the young men. They machines, stalled at -10C, Perry said. your nails freeze and when you try to drive used packing crates to build a hangout – the The temperature never rose above freez- them they shatter.” Last Chance Saloon. With a false front and ing, but there were days in December when They were more isolated than workers at a hitching post, it looked like a stop on the the wind paused and the sun reflected off the the Pole today. The only way to communi- Pony Express. The sign for the saloon now aluminum, allowing the Seabees working cate with people back home was over the See Dome on page 22 22 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005

Photo by Lee Mattis / Special to The Antarctic Sun Right, a Seabee installs aluminum panels on the completed dome frame during the austral summer 1972-73. Panels are pulled up through triangular openings of the dome frame. Above, the top half of the frame waits inside the bottom half to be lifted into place.

Photo by John Perry / Special to The Antarctic Sun Dome From page 21 hangs in the Seabee Museum at Port and mate it with the bottom. that we know how to reassemble it.” Hueneme, along with a piece of plywood Mattis designed the assembly system, Though the dome is structurally sound, with the names of all the Seabees who and said an error in his calculations almost it’s not watertight. Since there’s no precipi- helped build the dome. halted the dome construction. As they were tation at the South Pole, it didn’t need to be. On their Sunday afternoons off the lifting the top section with hand winches However, being built completely of alu- Seabees played ping-pong, watched movies they discovered it couldn’t fit through the minum with stainless steel fasteners, it (Star Trek and Mission Impossible), and base. won’t corrode. occasionally played football, using bottled “That was a hairy time,” Mattis said. “We’re not going to try to use it to make oxygen to help them overcome the thinner The Seabees solved the problem by it weather-tight or anything like that,” atmosphere. Bob Clancy remembers anoth- using cable hand winches to temporarily Hilderbrand said. “That would be a horren- er Seabee bringing down golf clubs and a pull the base open wider, allowing the top to dous expense. The thing wasn’t designed to golf ball painted orange so he could tee off slip through. be weather-tight.” at the South Pole. They even had a dance on “The Seabees are quite good at stuff like Some of the exterior panels will be left Sadie Hawkins Day. that, working with things that all of a sudden off to let in natural light, but the panels cov- “Half the guys were guys and half the didn’t go according to plan,” Mattis said. ering at least the bottom 3m will be installed guys were gals,” Clancy said. “They drew it At the time, Mattis and the Seabees to keep kids from climbing on it. out of a hat. My date was Frank. I remem- assumed the dome they were building “If you put up just the frame, you have ber him, about 300 pounds and a mean- would stay at the South Pole forever, even the world’s largest jungle gym,” looking Italian with a mophead.” though its expected useful life was only 15 Hilderbrand said. In 1974 the dome was finished. The years. Most previous stations, including the The 1,860-square-meter space under the Seabees all wrote their names and address one they were replacing, were eventually dome will be large enough to display bull- on the last piece with permanent marker. buried under snow and left there. Even with “Probably it’s been wore off, with the regular efforts to excavate it, the bottom 5m dozers and other heavy equipment the sun and weather,” said Bill Slayman. “We of the dome are covered with snow. Seabees frequently used. thought, well, nobody else will see them.” “The assumption was it will be there for- “Just the sheer size of it is going to None of them thought then the dome ever, but now they have to take it out any- impress a lot of people,” Hilderbrand said. would someday be taken down. way, so there’s no added cost to the NSF.” The existing Seabee museum is two Reassembling the dome will be easier in The dome would have been shipped to Quonset huts 180m inside the Naval Base. It Port Hueneme, where the average tempera- Port Hueneme anyway, because all waste used to have 25,000 to 30,000 visitors a year ture ranges from 13 to 24C. They will also from the South Pole and McMurdo Station before heightened security made it difficult be able to assemble the dome in the stan- goes there. When the dome arrives it will for most people to access. When the new dard manner, hanging it from a central probably be stored until it can be reassem- museum is built outside the naval base, tower as the pieces are added from the top bled as part of the museum, Hilderbrand 75,000 to 100,000 visitors are expected each down. When the dome was originally set up said. There are still many issues to work out, year. For the dome, that will be more visi- at the South Pole, the tower couldn’t be including where to put the dome and how tors every year than have visited the Pole in used because it was too large to ship in an much of it to assemble. three decades. LC130. Instead, a smaller tower was used to “We don’t know if the Navy will give “I’m glad they’re going to do something build the top half of the dome, while the bot- enough space to put up the entire dome,” with it,” Slayman said. “Especially if it’s tom half was built from the bottom up. Then Hilderbrand said. “In the meantime, let’s going to come back to the states. It’ll be the tower was broken down into 10 stan- work on getting the dome out and make sure something maybe I can go see again. I chions, which were used to lift the top half it’s stored and everything in such a fashion didn’t think I’d ever probably see it again.” June 21, 2005 The Antarctic Sun • 23

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

Doc, I need help. The cold and darkness First my body are driving me crazy. clock is screwed up and I'm having trouble sleeping.

And now I'm Last night I thought I I think trying hallucinating and saw a giant chicken in to lay an egg seeing weird things. the distance. Tell me, is harder than what do you think? you think.

How's the You want to IT'S COLD AND DARK winter going know how it's going? I'll ALL THE for you? TIME, PLUS tell you how THE FOOD it's going. IS BETTER IN A PRISON, OK?!

I'VE HAD IT So why don't What? WITH THE you take And use MONOTONY AND online up my classes or own HAVING learn a new free NOTHING TO DO hobby? time? BUT GOSSIP! Are you crazy?

What’s the best aspect of winter?

“It’s not “The single “The long summer.” idea of watch- sunrises and ing my breath sunsets. The and hearing it colors are come out of my spectacular!” mouth.”

Devon Morgante, Gabriel Schneck, Glenn Grant, Sous chef from Pole powerplant Palmer Station Sebastopol, Calif., technician from Science Technician 3 seasons Niantic, Conn. from Port Townsend, 1 winter Wash. 5 winters 24 • The Antarctic Sun June 21, 2005 Profile Making bad jokes and good choices

By Kristan Hutchison talked to the managers and mentioned he Sun staff might have an interest in being station The first time Bill Henriksen saw an manager some point down the road when advertisement for jobs in Antarctica he it would not interfere with the Title II posi- thought it would be an interesting, but stu- tion. pid, thing to do. Two years later he had a call from Now he’s overseeing a community of Grant, asking if he was still interested in 86 at the South Pole, a role that is part being station manager. It would mean small-town mayor, part boss and part leaving his wife behind for almost a year, peacekeeper. Short of a medical emer- quitting his engineering job and taking a gency, nobody can leave or arrive at the pay cut. isolated station from mid-February to “I basically told her there was no way early November. in Hell I could do it,” Henriksen said, It tends to bring out the best, and the since he had just committed to being the strangest, in people. Title II inspector for Winfly in McMurdo “People’s behaviors during the winter and Pole for the summer. are so completely weird and entertaining,” After 45 minutes of conversation she Henriksen said. “Everybody’s quirky.” asked him to sleep on it over the weekend. Including Henriksen, known for telling “I wasn’t really ready to take no for an bad jokes during meetings. answer,” Grant said. “Pick any station meeting and he’ll Photo courtesy of Bill Henriksen / Special to The Antarctic Sun She was right to wait. By Monday, after have one,” said South Pole Area Director Station manager Bill Henriksen in one of talking it over with his wife and his boss, BK Grant. “You have to laugh because the South Pole tunnels. Henriksen had changed his mind. they’re so bad.” The winter of 2003 turned out to be Henriksen’s laid-back management A year contract would mean nearly two another exciting one at the South Pole, style and bad jokes are well-suited to the years of winter darkness, going from the with a medical evacuation in September. extreme isolation, said Grant, who works Alaskan winter to the Antarctic winter and Usually there are no flights to the Pole with him at the Pole during the summer back to the Alaskan winter. But once more until November because of the tempera- and from Denver in the winter. Henriksen he ended up doing what he’d said he ture, which at that time was around -80F keeps things in perspective in the middle wouldn’t. When the engineer who was outside. The Polies spent several days of winter, when the isolation can make supposed to be the winter inspector at the preparing the skyway and warming up fuel small problems seem like crisises and true Pole couldn’t pass the physical, Henriksen for the plane. crisis appear insurmountable. was asked if he was interested and he Leaving the Ice after that winter, “He’s good at separating the wheat jumped at the opportunity. “By that time Henriksen experienced some culture from the chaff, so to speak,” she said. I’d figured out that I could take some seri- shock. In a grocery store in Hawaii he was Henriksen is no stranger to living in ous vacation time in the Southern overwhelmed by the number of people and remote areas. He spent many of his forma- Hemisphere after the Austral winter and shelves full of consumer goods and had to tive years in small Native villages in wouldn’t have to come directly back to the leave the store. When he’d try to describe Alaska, where his parents were the only Alaskan winter,” Henriksen said. his experiences in Antarctica with friends, teachers. Often he was in the minority, he “I kind of joke about it. I was in the per- he couldn’t. and his sisters being the only white kids in fect job. I wasn’t a grantee. I wasn’t Navy “You can’t explain the intricate details, the community. That taught him how to or RPSC,” Henriksen said. “The only the things that are funny,” Henriksen said. get along. place I had to report to was Anchorage.” “I found I could tell a story from winter Henriksen first saw an advertisement His neutral position and easygoing and it would fall flat.” for Antarctic work in 1990. At the time he demeanor drew people needing to talk. This winter is Henriksen’s third at the was recently divorced and living in Maine There were plenty that winter, especially South Pole, his second as station manager with his kids, ages 6 and 10. after an Australian researcher died at the and the first time his wife, Janet Arin, also “I was looking at an ITT advertisement Pole in May. Henriksen developed a per- got a job at the Pole. in the Portland paper for engineers in spective on the station and ended up arbi- “It’s a good time to do it,” he said at the Antarctica saying ‘Wow, that would be a trating a dispute between two cooks. He beginning of the season. really interesting thing to do,’” Henriksen also found he liked the camaraderie of the The kids are grown. Their home in said. “Then I looked back at it and said, South Pole in winter, where people talk Anchorage is rented. And, at 45 years old, ‘Wow, that would be a really stupid thing about things they never would at home he realizes he won’t be able to pass the to do if I want to keep my kids.’” and it’s easy to make close friendships required physical exams forever. Eight years later he was working for with people you’d never meet in the larger “When I get too old and feeble to do RSA Engineering in Anchorage as an world. this any more, I’ll look for one of those engineer when the Navy hired the firm to “He was very effective and obviously city engineering jobs in a small town in provide a licensed engineer for the Title II was able to bridge gaps that existed, and Alaska,” he said. inspector position at South Pole. gain confidence and trust,” Grant said. But for the moment he enjoys the chal- Henriksen was sent to the South Pole dur- “He proved himself to be a good listener lenges that come up at the Pole and the ing the summer of 1998-99. and a good mediator during that winter, quirky personalities of people that chose “After that first summer I vowed I would and those were all good skills.” to spend the winter there. And at least never do a full year,” Henriksen said. At the end of the winter, Henriksen there, people laugh at his jokes.