A MEMORY OF ICE THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE OF THE GLOMAR CHALLENGER A MEMORY OF ICE THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE OF THE GLOMAR CHALLENGER ELIZABETH TRUSWELL Published by ANU Press The Australian National University Acton ACT 2601, Australia Email: [email protected] Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au ISBN (print): 9781760462949 ISBN (online): 9781760462956 WorldCat (print): 1110168416 WorldCat (online): 1110171035 DOI: 10.22459/10.22459/MI.2019 This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). The full licence terms are available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover artwork by Elizabeth Truswell. This edition © 2019 ANU Press Contents Illustrations . vii Preface . xi Acknowledgements . xiii Glossary . xv Prologue . .. xxi 1 . To sea in search of the forests . 1 2 . But first, the plateau . 27 3 . Across the spreading ridge . .. 43 4 . Crossing the path of HMS Challenger . .. 67 5 . Encounter with Captain James Cook . 83 6 . The memory of ice . 105 7 . The continent’s imprint . 127 8 . Into the fabled sea . 149 9 . Traces of the forest . 177 10 . An intensity of green . .. 197 Bibliography . 211 Illustrations Figure 1. Route of the Glomar Challenger on Leg 28, with numbered drill sites shown; 1,000 m and 3,000 m contours shown .....xxiii Figure 2. Frozen bollard on the Glomar Challenger ...............xxv Figure 1.1. Antarctica, with sites referred to in this chapter .........6 Figure 1.2. Geological time scale, simplified after International Commission on Stratigraphy (2017) ......................9 Figure 1.3. Glomar Challenger preparing for the Antarctic voyage, Fremantle, December 1972 ............................22 Figure 1.4. Pipe rack on the foredeck of the Glomar Challenger .....23 Figure 1.5. Moon pool on the Glomar Challenger ................25 Figure 2.1. Sea floor topography south of Australia showing Naturaliste Plateau, the Diamantina Fracture Zone and, further south, the Abyssal Plain and the Southeast Indian Ridge ......29 Figure 2.2. Sea floor detail from southwestern Australia showing the Naturaliste Plateau (NP) and the Diamantina Fracture Zone (DZ) to the south. False colour image ................30 Figure 2.3. Bust of Nicolas Baudin; Augusta Historical Society Western Australia. Sculptor Peter Gelencér. 33 Figure 3.1. Foraminifera; Globigerina bulloides. Scale bar 100 microns ................................47 Figure 3.2. Coccosphere with coccoliths; Gephyrocapsa oceanica. Scale bar 1.0 microns. 48 Figure 3.3. Diatoms from the Southern Ocean. Scale bar 20 microns .................................50 vii A MEMory of ICE Figure 3.4. Radiolaria. Pl. 99 from Ernst Haeckel, Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873–76, 1887 .....................................52 Figure 3.5. Sea floor map of the North Atlantic. Artwork by Heinrich Berann ....................................62 Figure 3.6. Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen ....................63 Figure 4.1. The H.M.S. Challenger in the Southern Ocean. Watercolour by Sub-Lieutenant Herbert Swire ..............68 Figure 4.2. Route of HMS Challenger .........................69 Figure 4.3 Dried foraminiferal (Globigerina) oozes collected by HMS Challenger ..................................72 Figure 4.4. HMS Challenger firing at the ice berg, Feby. 21. Drawing on cardboard by J.J. Arthur .....................75 Figure 4.5. Chart of HMS Challenger’s path, showing the site of dredging the first diatom ooze that their scientists had encountered at their Site 1260. .77 Figure 5.1. Henricus Hondius, Polus Antarcticus, 1642. ...........86 Figure 5.2. The Resolution and Adventure 4 Jan 1773. Taking in Ice for Water, Lat 61.S. Ink and watercolour by William Hodges ...92 Figure 5.3. Ice Islands with Ice Blink. Gouache by Georg Forster, February 1773 ......................................94 Figure 5.4. The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around. Wood engraving by Gustave Doré ......................104 Figure 6.1. Iceberg with rusty streak, approach to Site 267 ........108 Figure 6.2. Ice floes on choppy water. Watercolour by Herbert Swire ..109 Figure 6.3. Tabular icebergs in the South Atlantic; diagonals are isogonal lines, connecting points of equal magnetic declination. From Halley’s Atlantic chart .................110 Figure 6.4. Large ice island. Pen and ink by William Hodges, January 1773. .111 Figure 6.5. Satellite image of giant iceberg in the Weddell Sea, showing enhanced levels of chlorophyll (yellow and red patches) trailing in its wake. Nature Geoscience, 2016 ........113 viii IlluSTrationS Figure 6.6. Leg 28 core showing large glacial clasts derived from the Antarctic continent—granite (to the right) and probably gabbro. Site 268 Core 6–1. The section of core in the foreground shows dark muds rich in diatoms .............120 Figure 6.7. Sketch of an iceberg with included rock. Included by Darwin in his note to the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1839. Drawn by a Mr McNab of the Enderby expedition ........................................123 Figure 7.1. Circum-Antarctic circulation, showing Antarctic Convergence and Antarctic Circumpolar Current ..........132 Figure 7.2. James Croxall Palmer ...........................139 Figure 7.3. Extract from Mawson’s 1914 map of the East Antarctic coastal region, showing bases at Commonwealth Bay and near Shackleton Ice Shelf, as well as part of the routes of the Aurora cruises. The position of Site 268, drilled on Leg 28, has been added .....................................142 Figure 7.4. A glimpse of the Aurora from within a cavern in the Merz Glacier, Adelie Land. Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Frank Hurley . 145 Figure 8.1. James Clark Ross. Lithograph by Thomas Herbert Maguire, 1851. 164 Figure 8.2. Possession Island. Watercolour by John Edward Davis ...168 Figure 8.3. Joseph Hooker at work. Pen and ink drawing by Theodore Blake Wirgman, 1886 .......................174 Figure 9.1. Nothofagus gunnii in Tasmania in autumn foliage ......179 Figure 9.2. Eocene pollen from sediments in Prydz Bay: a. pollen of Araucariaceae; b, c. Nothofagaceae—pollen of the Nothofagus fusca type; d. Proteaceous pollen; f, g. biwinged pollen of the conifer family Podocarpaceae ..........................185 Figure 9.3. Wood fragments (above) and leaf impressions of Nothofagus beardmorensis (below) from the Sirius Group .....191 Figure 9.4. Zachos Curve of global temperatures set against a summary of the vegetation record from East Antarctica. The curve is based on oxygen isotope data from foraminifera drawn from deep sea drilling sites .......................194 ix A MEMory of ICE Figure 10.1. The US icebreaker Burton Island in Lyttelton Harbour, February 1973, showing the dent above the belt line after meeting a bergy bit in the Ross Sea .....................198 Figure 10.2. Moss growth on the Antarctic Peninsula ............207 x Preface The formal organisation of ocean drilling to recover core samples from the floor of the ocean has been operating now for 50 years. Samples from the sea bed reveal much of the way the Earth works—its climates past and present; its active nature, including the origin of destructive earthquakes; and the evolutionary history of much of its biology. This is now the world’s largest international geoscience program. The first sea-going vessel specifically designed for this program was the Glomar Challenger, the subject of this book. Glomar Challenger was launched in 1968 as part of the Deep Sea Drilling Project. After 1983, when that ship was scrapped, other vessels and other programs followed, becoming increasingly international and with improved technical capabilities. The dedicated drilling ships were the Resolution and the Chikyu; other vessels, other drilling platforms, were co-opted as necessary. Of the newer programs, the Ocean Drilling Program ran from 1983 to 2003; the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program from 2003 to 2013 when its successor, the International Ocean Discovery Program, replaced it. With time, the programs have become increasingly focused on particular problems in Earth science, contrasting with the early programs that were more broadly exploratory—a more ‘looking to see what’s there’ approach. As the pioneer vessel of this early phase in our understanding of the oceans, the Glomar Challenger has achieved something of iconic status. It has been called ‘famous’, ‘pioneering’ and ‘a ship that revolutionised Earth science’. The present volume is just one story of that iconic vessel, on which I was privileged to sail in the southern summer of 1972/73 on its first and most successful voyage into the waters close to Antarctica. xi Acknowledgements I am grateful to ANU Press for giving me the opportunity to tell part of the Glomar Challenger story. Brian Kennett, as Chair of ANU Press’s Editorial Board for Science and Engineering, steered the book through its early stages. For editing and comments on an earlier version of the manuscript thanks go to Neville Exon and Bernadette Hince and to Geoffrey Hunt for careful copy editing. Two referees, Jo Whittaker of the University of Tasmania, and Kiyushi Suyehiro of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) provided valuable overviews of the manuscript. Any mistakes in the text are my own. I owe thanks to Professor Stephen Eggins of the Research School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, for providing me with