Over the Sea Ice to Mario Zucchelli (Terra Nova) Station

This is a long-overdue missive about my trip to Mario Zucchelli Station. Before we even left the US, we were told by Louise (the ANDRILL Eucation and Outreach Co-ordinator) that one of the most important qualities we would need to draw on would be flexibility. We practiced this as we hurried up and then waited while our plane was delayed in Christchurch due to bad weather in McMurdo. But I saw another side of this when Louise rushed into the Micropaleontology Lab and said ‘if you want to go to Mario Zuchelli Station for an overnight stay, be ready with all your ECW gear and anything you need for overnight in 20 minutes - the plane is leaving in 40 minutes!’ Mario Zucchelli Station is the Italian Station formerly known as Terra Nova Station. Mario Zucchelli Station is named for the Italian Scientist and Visionary Mario Zucchelli who oversaw and led the Italian Antarctic Program and the development of the Station.

Map of the Ross Sea Region showing loaction
of Terra NovaBay - the site of Mario Zucchelli Station

I made it back to the dorm, then back to the lab (running all the way - it is hard to run in full ECW gear). I was quite excited. We got weighed in, and got a shuttle out to the runway. We flew in a heavily modified Twin Otter. The company contracted to fly the Twin Otters in Antarctica is Ken Borek Air - a Canadian company - most of the pilots have arctic experience and fly in the Arctic when they are not flying in Antarctica.

The Twin Otter being loaded on the ice at Mario Zucchelli Station

The flight was a microcosm of the International flavor of Antarctica: passengers on the flight included a French Geophysicist/Station Manager (his name was Jean-Francois) en route to the joint Italian/French Station (Concordia Station) at Dome C, and three members of the Italian Station, as well as the Pilot and co-pilot, and another Polish-Canadian pilot that was getting a ride back to Mario Zucchelli, plus myself, Joanna, and Graziano (the teacher from Italy). After the initial rush we waited for an hour while some bags were transferred from the C-17 that had just arrived from Christchurch.

Graziano, Myself and Joanna - all excited about our trip!

Mario Zuchelli Station (formerly called Terra Nova Station) is the Italian station at the southern extent of Northern Victoria Land. We flew over the Ross Sea with views of the Transantarctic Mountains to the west (left) in the distance. But the view that captivated or mesmerized me was the view straight down. I had not realized both how complex and how distinctive the different types of sea ice are, and what a complex pattern they make - it was like looking at pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. At first much of the sea-ice was covered by relatively recent snow that was draped over the ice – one could make out subtle patterns in the ice below, such as the pattern left by the channel that was broken by the icebreaker when the ship came in last February/March. As we flow north we started to get a sense of the area representing a jigsaw of ice plates that been broken up, refrozen, then broken up again.

The Incredible World of Sea Ice
Here are some of the distinctive forms and features that I could see (go to the NSIDC or World Meteorological Organization or NOAA for descriptions and definitions of the different types of sea ice).

Sea ice forms by the freezing of sea water. Some sea ice only lasts one season – other sea ice lasts for two or more years, and is called multi-year sea ice. One of the more dramatic seasonal variations in Antarctica is the difference in the extent of winter sea ice compared to the extent of summer sea ice; the changing extent of winter and summer sea-ice extent is being monitored closely by climate change scientists.

Ceramic Tile (my 'Trivet #1') showing winter and summer extent of sea ice around Antarctica - based on data and maps from NOAA)

We flew over the Drygalski Ice Tongue – which was the centre of an iceberg-related drama in 2005. The Drygalski Ice Tongue is the floating portion of the Davis Glacier. It is 20 km wide, 50-200 m thick, and at least 4000 years old (based on radiocarbon dates from penguin guano). The area of open water (polynya) on its northern margin provides access to good fishing for the penguin colonies in the vicinity.

View of edge of Drygalski Ice Tongue and adjacent sea ice (mostly Nilas Ice)

The Drygalski Ice Tongue is moving at a rate of between 50 and 900 meters per year. The iceberg-related drama that I mentioned is the collision of portions of the large iceberg (B-15) that broke off from the front of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 with the Drygalski Ice Tongue in April 2005. The chunk of Ice broken off the Ice Tongue measured about 7.5 miles across.

There are several areas of open water in the Ross Sea; these are called polynyas. The map below shows the approximate location of two of the larger polynyas we flew over.

The polynya near the Drygalski Ice Tongue is the result of strong catabatic winds that produce waves and prevent sea ice from forming. Within some of the polynyas that we flew over I could see incredible diatom blooms that look brownish grey in color; the distribution of the diatoms is a consequence in part of wind and wave action; diatoms are algae that make their microscopic shells out of silica - we have a team of diatomists working with Andrill that are using ancient diatoms to help us determine the age of the sediments in the core.

Aerial view of the Terra Nova Polynya with diatom blooms (brownish areas in the water). This picture is taken looking westward towards the Transantarctic Mountains.

Diatom Bloom at the edge of the Ice. Sometimes the thinner and younger Dark Nilas seems to incorporate diatoms from these blooms - it takes on a murky brownish color. There must be enough sunlight here to allow the diatoms to photosynthesize.

At Mario Zuchelli they had been very concerned as to whether the fragments of B-15 would collide with the Campbell Glacier Tongue, which is just north of the station, and essentially protects the water in Gerlache Inlet (the northern part of Terra Nova Bay) from early melt out.

Map of Terra Nova Bay Region of the Western Ross Sea

This is important because at Mario Zucchelli they depend in part on a sea-ice runway as long as possible. It turned out that the Campbell Ice Tongue was unaffected by B-15, but Giuseppe and Roberto did describe the calving of a large portion of the Campbell Ice Tongue “we looked out the window at breakfast one morning and suddenly realized that the front of the ice stream had broken off and a large iceberg was floating away.” They are still waiting to see exactly how this will affect development and melting of the sea ice in Gerlache Inlet.

View to the North. The Campbell Glacier Tongue is the white 'line' almost on the horizon. Cape Washington (location of an Emperor Penguin Colony) is the land in the background.

What amused me about my arrival at Mario Zuchelli was that even here in Antarctica, there was something about the color and light that made it seem Mediterranean (the wonderful pasta and good coffee also helped). It is situated on honey-colored granitic rocks in a small cove.

Mario Zucchelli Station with Mt. Browning & the Deep Freeze Range in the Background. You can see the sea ice runway (...on the sea ice ...)

The sun was low on the horizon, and the rocks had a warm glow to them, emphasizing their beautiful weathered shapes, illuminating the mostly blue and red station. It seemed like a picturesque fishing village in comparison to the enormous station at McMurdo.

Weathered granite at Mario Zucchelli Station

p.s. Oh, and by the way, in case you did not realize it, my ceramics project (see blog 'Don't High-Fire Andrill Penguins') finally produced something useable - Trivet #1, showing the winter and summer sea ice extent made it through the glazing and firing process - I used it earlier in place of a map from a technical publication!

Beacon Valley...or Gilligan's Island?

Beautiful view of a huge glacier in the Dry Valleys.

Two tiny climbers in red are on this mountain--can you find them? This is to give an idea of scale!

Remember the old TV show, Gilligan’s Island? Well, we also started out on a fateful trip…

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…a tale of a fateful trip.
It started from this icy shore aboard a flying ship.

The mate was a mighty helo tech, the pilot brave and sure…
Eight passengers took flight that day for an eight-hour tour…

The weather started getting rough, the tiny craft was tossed
Helo Ops stopped all the flights, so the crew would not be lost.

The explorers hiked across the hills, to the shore of New Harbor Isle…
They had to make the best of things, they’re here for a long, long time.


We took a helo field trip out to Beacon Valley--it's a valley farther than the Taylor Glacier which was as close to the polar plateau as I had been before. The mountains at the end of Beacon actually hold back the polar ice sheet. Beacon is one of the Dry Valleys; an incredible landscape that reminds one of Mars—red sand and rocks, and dry as a bone. According to written records, it has not precipitated there in over fifteen million years, and what does fall is all snow or ice, which often ablates before hitting the ground.
Louise showing scale of a rock split during freeze-thaw cycles. Looks like Our helo taking off after dropping us in Beacon Valley.
a huge 3-D jigsaw puzzle!

It was windy and very cold, but as long as we kept moving, we were quite comfortable. We hiked around the bouldery valley floor and up the mountain slopes to take a look at the outcrops of rock, which are partially responsible for feeding sediments into Victoria Basin where we are drilling right now. After about four and a half hours the helo picked us up and took us to Commonwealth Glacier where, in 2002, I had studied the streams that melt and run-off in the summer. It was exciting to “come home” to the place I had spent eight weeks my first time in Antarctica.


We were dropped with our survival bags about a mile and a half from the glacier, so we hiked over to take a closer look, then hiked back to the drop point. We still had an hour before the helo was to come back, so some (I opted out--I had already hiked about five hours--a lot of it uphill) climbed down a steep embankment (about fifty yards down) and then up the other side to an outcrop there. I took a nap on a huge, tabular rock--great view of the glacier and mountains, and it felt great!


The rest of the group finally came back, and we waited about half an hour for the helo which didn't come-our radios weren't working in the valley, so a group hiked to the top of the closest hill and tried again. Mac Ops told us that they were weathered in and no flights could get to us. We had two choices: make camp with the survival bags--ugh! Nasty freeze-dried food, tents, pads and sleeping bags that aren't all that great, and stoves that we were trained to use in Happy Camper School, OR, walk three and a half miles over a small mountainous or hilly terrain to New Harbor camp. We chose that option. Our weather was fine--so off we went. I felt it was tough going—others thought it was a walk in the park! I’m sure it was all a function of age and fitness level—guess which end of the spectrum I ended up on! You decide where on the spectrum you would have fallen. Some of the way was through snow that would break under your feet and end halfway up your calf--you'd have to pull your leg free. Then you'd be on large rocks that turned and twisted under your boots; then over small, pebbly surfaces that moved like sand and were hard to walk through. I preferred the larger boulders and hated the snow! I was carrying a heavy backpack and sweating as we crossed the last of the three hills (not quite "mountains" but enough elevation for me!).

But the walk was well worth it. We arrived at New Harbor about 10 PM. The camp was a double "jamesway", a curved canvas shelter with electricity, wooden flooring, tables, chairs, a gas stove and cots with blankets and pillows. It also had two large propane heaters, so we were toasty for most of the stay. There wasn't a lot of food, but we had hot chocolate, granola bars, and Ramen noodles--so not a bad deal at all. In the morning we found that some frozen food had been stored in a cold cellar, so we baked raspberry turn-overs and if we had had to stay longer, we also found bagels we could toast up.

The only difficulty was during the night. There were only five cots and eight people, so three slept on the floor or on tables. The cots weren’t exactly cushy, but I fell asleep fairly quickly just wishing for a toothbrush! In the middle of the night, my shivering woke me up, and I knew from survival training that your body is heading toward hypothermia if you don’t take steps to warm up. The propane heater had gone out, and I was closest to the outside wall. The cold air was sucking the heat out of my body from under the cot. I got up and folded a blanket to give me four layers under me, put my Big Red on, and found another blanket for my feet. I can’t say I was warm, but at least I wasn’t shivering anymore.

The next morning the weather was still bad in McMurdo and we had a low ceiling in the Dry Valleys, so we explored the sea ice and a small fishing hut that was located in the harbor. The sea ice is amazing. I think this is multi-year ice, so it is very thick, but it also had huge pressure ridges, cracks, and lots of sediment that has built up on the surface. While on the ice, we found a large seal that had pushed her nose through a dive hole, lifted off the cover that the divers had attached, and flopped down to take a nap in the sun. She was funny to watch. She’d lift her head and check us out, but it was obvious that she knew the redcoats were no threat because she plopped back down and went right back to sleep. Have you ever watched a dreaming dog with its paws running? Well, she, too, seemed to be dreaming as she flipped her tail and made little grunting noises. I’m not sure if it was a happy dream or a nightmare, but she was certainly busy!

Finally around noon, the ceiling lifted enough that a helo was able to go pick up our survival bags, about 100 pounds of rock samples we had collected, and then it came to get us.

Our eight-hour tour had ended up being a twenty-four hour “boondoggle.” When we arrived back in McMurdo, we were met with concerned looks over our “survival trial”—that is until they found out what a cushy setting we really had! So they wanted to know how ‘Gilligan’s Island’ really was, and although I thought we should have agreed upon a good story about facing the harsh Antarctic winds as we fought our way on foot across the mountains…we couldn’t help but just grin over our grand adventure!

Thanks Kate Pound and Joanna Hubbard for sharing your pictures! My camera was dropped about a week ago, and I am so grateful that you are taking so many great shots!













Kate Pound in front of the jamesways at the New Harbor field camp.
Joanna Hubbard

Camp Cuisine from 11/7/07

Camp Cuisine

11/07

I just hung up from an Iridium phone call back home with a very dear friend of my mine who was concerned that we might not be eating very well out here at camp. I could tell him that we’ve been having excellent food, which made me think I’ve been remiss in describing that part of camp life for you.

Our camp cook is Joan. She lives in Wyoming when she is “home”. We’ve become good tentmates and enjoy the infrequent quiet afternoons at camp when we can wash our hair. I’ve noticed the dinners over the last few days have become much more interesting to the palate, rather than just being good food that fills you up. Joan said she’s feeling much more in her element and in a creative mood now that we’ve really settled in. After earning her degree in geology, Joan began her culinary training in Philadelphia. She’s had many interesting experiences since then including outdoor education instructor and being a ranch hand. Cooking and the outdoors seem to be recurring themes. Joan said, “Cooking is a way to go places, because everyone needs to eat.” Brandon and Josh, the mechanics that joined us for dinner last night will attest that we don’t just eat, we’re Dining.

I wish I had taken a photo of last night’s dinner. Sautéed chicken breasts with sundried tomatoes and mozzarella, accompanied by tortellini with pesto and lovely green beans. Joan made a beautiful presentation. Tonight’s menu, Thai green curry with chicken and shrimp. The tangy aromas are making me very hungry as I sit here writing, maybe I should move over to the science tent instead!

I’m amazed by Joan’s creations given what she has to work with.

The outside photo shows the refrigerator/ freezer, or as Joan calls it, the “grocery store”. Photos inside the kitchen show the inside food stores and the stove/work surface. And of course, a very happy Joan after we all enjoyed her Thai curry. (p.s. It was REALLY good!!!! )

This reviewer gives restaurant Granite Harbor G-049, a four star rating. Reservations suggested.

Diatom Ice

It's the afternoon of November 13th. I'm back in McMurdo and very happy to finally post blogs I wrote last week. This is one is from November 3rd.

So, I noticed when we first started shooting off the air cannon to conduct the seismic survey, some of the ice that came up with the sea water and air bubbles looked it was formed from root beer. Here’s a more scientific description: irregularly shaped chunks of translucent ice ranging in size from approximately three to eight inches in length with mottled internal yellowish brown coloring. I know from the scientists here with ANDIRLL that the coloring is colonies of diatoms. Diatoms are plants that are about the size of the head of a pin and are made of silica (a sand-like substance). Most of the diatom ice slides back into the hole with the receding sea water when the air gun ceases firing. Hopefully, the diatoms go on living and no harm done.

One morning when we arrived at the survey line to begin our day, I noticed a chunk of diatom ice on the surface of the area of the last hole we shot from the afternoon before. It had sat out in the bright sunshine all night. Instead of the usual brownish color I’ve become used to, it was a lovely shade of green. I took a photo of it lying on the aqua colored sea ice with the toes of my “bunny boots” (seriously, that’s what these boots are called-why, I don’t know!) to prove to everyone that Antarctica isn’t only shades of white.

Here’s a science question for you; why was it green now and not still brownish? Why is that important? To test my hypothesis of why that happened, I collected some other pieces of brown diatom ice and left them out in the sun by the last hole of the day. My prediction was that they would be green the next day. My prediction was correct. When we came back the next morning they were green. For comparison I collected another piece of brown diatom ice and photographed them next to each other. The brown ice is the piece on the left.

So, what’s happening with the diatom ice? And why is it important?

Feeling Safe

Tim Cully is a part time Mountaineer in Antarctica. In his off-ice life he is an Emergency Room nurse in Wyoming. On very short notice, in late September, Tim, a seasoned Antarctic mountaineer and veteran to McMurdo in a wide range of roles, was asked to come lead our Mackay Sea Valley field team, since the original mountaineer was no longer able to go. Tim was only able to take a few weeks off of work, but his expertise was needed to get the team safely out to the field area over sea ice, and to set up camp on the sea ice near Granite Harbor, around 100 miles from McMurdo Station.

The chief scientist eagerly accepted his limited availability, and said he would patch coverage for the field team with different mountaineers after Tim left.

I was puzzled why they would go to the expense of flying someone out for such a short time, when they would still have to involve other mountaineers soon after the project started.

Then I met Tim.

From the very first meeting, Tim took leadership. He introduced himself to the team in a manner which seemed to say, "We are a team here and I value your ideas as well as your safety." It was the first time I had confronted my fears about traveling over sea ice, which has many potential dangers. Cracks. Thinning ice. Heavy vehicles passing over potentially invisible cracks.

Immediately our first meeting focused on the task ahead: to plan our 24 hour traverse, without stopping for the night, since it would be a huge task to set up camp in the middle of the ice, rather than to press on and set up a permanent camp. Was I scared? Heck yes! But somehow Tim laid it out and dealt with the dangers in a very calculated way, and presented to the team what his plans were to minimize the dangers and keep the journey safe. After giving us the facts and sharing his thoughts, TIm said something I never thought I would hear. He said, "Is everyone comfortable with this plan? We won't move ahead unless everybody feels okay with it."

Wow. So the 47 year old teacher from Michigan, who wasn't feeling as young as she once was, could still say, "Hang on, guys. I'm scared!"

Well, I didn't say it out loud. But I was relieved to have a team leader who was sensitive to the fact that I had two children at home to whom I wanted to return safely. It was clear that Tim wasn't the type to gamble with our safety. He also left nothing to chance. From double checking every tent, to triple checking fuel supplies, to securing three different radio types to take to the field, Tim took no shortcuts at ensuring our safe field season. He maintains the priority of getting the scientists out into the field, collecting data, but he does so in a way that does not jeopardize safety or challenge common sense.

In the end, the traverse ended up involving only half the group, and the rest of the team flew (minus me, who will fly out in a week or so) by helicopter. The traverse ended up stranded for 2 days due to equipment difficulties and poor weather which prohibited mechanics from flying out. But I know that the traverse party was warm, comfortable, and safe, even in their "stranded" state.

I saw Tim today when he helicoptered out of the field to prepare for his re-deployment to Christchurch tomorrow. He assured me that all was well with the team, that camp was established, and that they were well engaged with the seismic survey. I can only hope the other mountaineers inspire as much trust as Tim, since we will have a month in the field, followed by the long journey home to McMurdo.

Thanks, Tim, for making me feel safe!