A helicopter drops down to pick up an instrument box on the edge of Lake Bonney in the Taylor Valley. Thesolar-powered box was placed on the hillside, where it runs a Web camera that swivels to show people viewsof the glacier, camp and wind-carved rocks. See story on page 3.

Lift offDecember 15, 2002

Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

www.polar.org/antsun

Studying stripesin the Ice

Page 7

“Please tell all your people that ifthey have not got their packages,it’s because someone doesn’tlove them.”

Banding togetherto bandage theworld

Page 4

Quote of the Week

—McMurdo official, noting thatall personal mail has arrived

Photo by Kristan Hutchison/The Antarctic Sun

INSIDE

By Andrea BaerSpecial to The Antarctic Sun

The wind-blasted Southern Ocean, an areainhospitable to people, may neverthelesshave a tremendous impact on those parts ofthe world most inhabited.

Here gale-force gusts goad savage seasinto the Antarctic Circumpolar Current,which furrows a clockwise course aroundAntarctica.

This global current, the world’s largest, is13,049 miles (21,000 km) in length andtransports 34 billion gallons (130 millionm3) of water per second - 150 times the flow

of all the Earth’s rivers put together.“The Antarctic Circumpolar Current is the

only global current that flows uninterrupted,so it can actually transport heat all over theEarth by transferring it from one ocean basinto the other,” said Janet Sprintall in a tele-phone interview from her office at theScripps Institution of Oceanography in SanDiego.

Sprintall studies heat transfer in theAntarctic Circumpolar Current which, bymixing with the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian

By Melanie ConnerSun Staff

What could be more exhilaratingthan riding snowmobiles across theAntarctic outback to conduct a sci-ence experiment? Perhaps explod-ing dynamite between runs.

Using a technique first devel-oped about 100 years ago to findoil, seismologists in Antarctica thissummer are probing beneath the iceby studying the echoes of explo-sions they set off at the surface.

Researchers hope that artificial-ly produced seismic activity willallow them to profile the bedrockand understand the onset of IceStream D, a fast-flowing glacierand part of a network of streams inWest Antarctica that transport icefrom the continent’s interior to theRoss Sea.

“We take this thing and we jamit into the snow and ice and we lis-ten to it,” said SridharAnandakrishnan, glaciologist andprincipal investigator for theNational Science Foundation-fund-ed project. “We yell ‘hello’ really,really, really loudly down here andit comes back at us and we listen.”

Data obtained from seismic

Antarctic current circles the world

See Current on page 11See OnsetD on page 9

Snowshakingscience

The Antarctic Sun is funded by the NationalScience Foundation as part of the United

States Antarctic Program. Itsprimary audience is U.S.Antarctic Program participants,their families, and their friends.NSF reviews and approves

material before publication, but opinions andconclusions expressed in the Sun are notnecessarily those of the Foundation.

Use: Reproduction and distribution areencouraged with acknowledgment of sourceand author.

Senior Editor: Kristan HutchisonEditors: Melanie Conner

Mark SabbatiniCopy Editor: Liz Connell

Publisher: Valerie Carroll,Communications manager, RPSC

Contributions are welcome. Contact theSun at AntSun@usap.gov. In McMurdo, visitour office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: www.polar.org/antsun

2 • The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

Raytheon’s on-Ice employeesNumber of full-time vs. contractemployees: 310 full-time, 879 contractPercent of men to women: 65 percent men to 35 percent womenStates represented on the Ice: 50 plus D.C.States with the most people on the Ice:Alaska – 69; Washington – 77;California – 79; Colorado – 492.States with only one Raytheon employee each on the Ice: Alabama,Iowa, Kentucky and MississippiOnly state that throws its own party atMcMurdo Station: AlaskaNumber of employees under age 21:29Number of senior citizens employed onthe Ice: 9Age of oldest employee on the Ice: 74Age of youngest employee on the Ice:18Average age of Ice employees: 37Source: RPSC Human Resources

Cold, hard facts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

What’s going on here? It’s those penguins again. They’redemanding better working conditions.

There’s supposed to be a bigmeeting tonight to help resolve this.

...well, I guess that takes care ofeverything. Let’s shake on it to sealthe deal.

Not so fast! We have onemore item on the agenda.

The subject of NOWon sexual harassment...

Across1. Rocks formed by erosion, transport and deposition4. A steep-sided depression caused by impact or collapse6. Study of the Earth by quantitative physical methods7. A time period that saw the first great mass extinction11. Detrital, clay-rich sediment13. A major rock fracture exhibiting relative movement15. This era began roughly 500 million years ago16. Mountain-building episode caused by plate collisions17. Molten rock beneath the surface of the Earth18. Small continental fragments

Down2. More of these collected on the Ice than anywhere3. The highest mountains in Antarctica5. This mobile belt includes the Transantarctic Mountains7. The study of previous plants and animals and theirinteraction with their environments through fossils 8. The theory that the Earth's crust is made up of a seriesof pieces (two words)9. The process which ejects material into the atmosphere10. Breaking of a mineral along crystallographic planes12. These rocks dominate the East Antarctic coast14. A large mass comprised of South America, Africa,India, Australia, and New Zealand about 180 million yearsagoSolution on page 10

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Story and photos by Kristan HutchisonSun staff

To test his newest piece of equipment,Tony Hansen ran outside the Lake BonneyJamesway and waved at his family inCalifornia.

“Me and mom saw you wave at us,”12-year-old Christopher Hansen wroteback on “instant messenger” fromBerkeley, when his dad came in from theAntarctic cold.

Someday scientists could sit in theiruniversity offices and watch penguins ormicroorganisms or streams in the sameway. At least, that is Tony Hansen’s hopeas he designs and tests the Webcam con-nected to a solar-powered instrument box.The instrument box, called a TransportableAutonomous Instrumentation Support Unitor TAISU, has already been tested for onefield season in the Dry Valleys. The inter-nal temperature of the box tested at LakeHoare ranged from 68F to 86F (20C to33C), even when the outside temperaturewas near freezing.

The TAISU weighs about 650 lbs. (295kg.), with batteries and standard rackspace inside to hold instruments up to 10inches (25 cm.) high and 15 inches (38cm.) deep. The unit puts out 50 watts ofpower, more than enough for most scien-tific instruments, Hansen said.

“Once we know what scientists need,we can wire up all kinds of stuff and use itremotely,” Hansen said.

The 12-volt camera Hansen is testing isthe same kind used for security in banks.He can control it over the Internet, makingit swivel around to focus on the camp, theHughes Glacier, or a wind-carved rocknearby.

Cell biologist Sam Bowser and Hansenare already funded to install a cameraunderwater next season to study theforaminifera at New Harbor. Bowserwrote in an e-mail that he hopes to addresstwo important issues with the camera.

“Are the giant forams we see on theseafloor mobile, or do they just sit there allyear?” Bowser wrote from Albany, N.Y.“How do they feed in the winter when thesummer pulse of algae is gone?”

“Lipid analyses indicate that they eatlarger critters, like juvenile starfish andsmall crustaceans. Can we capture thiscarnivorous behavior ‘in the wild?’”

Hansen compares TAISU to the largerAutomatic Geophysical Observatories -

facilities that ran unmanned for the lastdecade at remote locations on the plateau.Another project is redesigning the remotestations with wind and solar power toreplace the unreliable propane generators.

“That’s heavy duty stuff,” Hansen said.“What I would like to do is put small-sized units in the hands of any scientist.”

The next goal is to create a “baby”TAISU, weighing less than 50 lbs. (23 kg)and the size of a laundry basket. At thatsize and weight, several could be carriedin a helicopter and deployed by one per-son in the field. The smaller TAISU wouldproduce about 5 watts, enough to runsmall instruments, such as the “Campbell”data loggers used by many field scientists,and an Iridium data phone.

“The niche I’d like to approach is thesmall portable unit for the field scientist

who’s currently measuring something andwants to just leave it,” Hansen said.

Hansen also plans to try adding wind-power to his larger units next year. Heaims to create a way to run instrumentsremotely in the Dry Valleys through thewinter, or on the coldest areas of theplateau in the summer.

“Then we can all work together tohave a winter-able capability without hav-ing to have people here,” Hansen said.“This is like a mini-AGO for the presentmillennium.”

The Webcam at Lake Bonney andanother at Lake Hoare will be runninguntil mid-January. Scientists and otherswanting to see how they work, or just geta peek at the Dry Valleys, can e-mailTonyHansen@Mageesci.com, or visithttp://www.mageesci.com/Antarctic.

December 15, 2002 The Antarctic Sun • 3

Tony Hansen checks theWeb camera, protectedfrom the elements by a

metal and plastic casing,as he and Joe Mastroianni

set it up above LakeBonney. The camera will

broadcast views of TaylorValley until mid-January,

including the sculpturalrock below, a view Hansen

chose because it remindshim of photos taken by the

Mars lander.

Webcam peeks on lakes Bonney and HoareVirtual valley visit

4 • The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

Perspectives Perspectives

By Christina ReganI went in to work a little early last

Sunday to pour some coffee into mybloodstream and get my act togeth-er. I needed the early rush of coffeethis Sunday just like I did lastSunday. Today didn’t seem any dif-ferent from the last three months ofSundays except that every bone inmy body ached from helping serveThanksgiving dinner the day beforeto all of McMurdo. What I didn’tknow was that today was going tobe different.

It’s my job to keep the coffeeflowing for the community onSunday mornings. I got out to theservice area to find the usual sceneat five before 10 … folks lined upout to the door waiting for waffles,omelets and fresh eggs to order.

I was restocking glasses when anunfamiliar face approached. Itturned out to be Lt. Col. DaveKoltermann from the 109th who is in charge of the people whomaintain and fly the ski Hercs that bring us in, out and around thecontinent.

Dave brought me a package from my Uncle Larry. It con-tained a banner that belongs to 5th and 6th graders at MargaretChase Smith School in Skowhegan and the Cornville ElementarySchool in Maine. My Uncle Larry teaches at both school. Thepackage also had a video and notebook explaining their mission.The banner is hand-lettered with the words “Sea to Shining Sea.”The mission of the students: “Putting a Band-Aid on the World.”

At 3 a.m. on the anniversary of 9/11, the entire class set out forthe top of Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor, Maine. They tookwith them a 30-by-50-foot flag to meet the sunrise. The flag wasprobably the first to greet the morning sun on the continental U.S.Then they put this flag on a plane with ambassadors from theirclass and sent them to a community in Yardley, Pa., that lostmany people in the disaster.

There they were received by K through 5th grade studentsfrom Makefield Elementary School. The ambassadors fromMaine passed out Band-Aids as a symbol of their mission andhope for healing. From there the flag was taken, via volunteers atUnited Airlines, to San Diego. In San Diego, the flag wasreceived by students from Clairmont High School and brought toCoronado Beach in time to meet the sunset on the same day.

“Sea to Shining Sea in One Day.” The kids’ goal was to uniteus all as a people and give everyone a feeling of pride and hopefor the future on that difficult day.

In June, Dave offered to bring their flag to Antarctica. Sincetheir mission is to put a Band-Aid on the world, they want to keep

the spirit of their flag movingaround the globe. The logistics ofgetting the 30-by-50-foot flag downto Antarctica was too complicated,but on Sunday the spirit of their flagarrived at McMurdo in the form oftheir banner.

On Thursday night the bannerwas taken to Cape Evans and BarneGlacier. Then, on Saturday, Davetook the banner and the spirit of the“Sea to Shining Sea” mission to theSouth Pole.

Dave said it was the most beauti-ful, calm day he has ever experi-enced at Pole. Some friends helpedhim take pictures of the banneraround Pole — with their plane atthe skiway, at the Pole marker andat the Dome. When Dave returnedto McMurdo he realized, by coinci-dence, the day that the banner trav-eled to Pole was another day of lossin our world’s history. It happened

to be Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day. Sometimes I feel like the equivalent of a speck of dust that

rises from Erebus and lands on the sea of ice that surrounds me;I know I am a very blessed member of humanity washing disheshere at the bottom of the world. I don’t see any other purposethan to love. I arrived to the most pristine, unforgiving place onEarth a few months ago and each day I have a clearer under-standing of just how small the world really is. It needs millionsof Band-Aids anointed with understanding and hope.

I talked to my sister recently. I called her from a telephone inAntarctica and I reached her on her cell phone while she was dri-ving around downtown Boston. There is a connection betweenthe reality of that ability to communicate from one side of theEarth to the other and my responsibility to battle against the vio-lence on our planet that feeds itself on an ignorance I don’t quiteunderstand. I thank the students of Maine, Pennsylvania,California, and Lt. Col. Dave Koltermann and Uncle Larry forshowing me a way into the battle against that ignorance throughcompassion for others and hope for the future.

Please pass the box of Band-Aids.

Christina Regan is a dining attendant at McMurdo Station.

Fifth and sixth graders sit around an American flag on topof Cadillac Mountain in Bar Harbor, Maine, where theywent to greet the sunrise on Sept. 11. The flag was thenflown to San Diego for sunset the same day.

Children send message of healing to South Pole

— Your words here —This page is set aside for scientists and com-munity members to share their research orAntarctic experiences in their own words. E-mailcolumns up to 900 words to antsun@usap.gov.

Photo by Melanie Furber Bachinski/Courtesy of Christina Regan

Backyard campingBy Tom CohenourPalmer correspondent

Tents popping up around PalmerStation have become an Antarctic ritual aspredictable as the arrival of nesting pen-guins. It’s a clear sign summer has arrived.

Some years it feels like a mass migra-tion, suddenly prompted by the warmingrays of sunshine. Other years, tents appearmore gradually as the snow slowlyrecedes from the triangular point of landon which Palmer resides.

The point, bounded by Arthur Harboron one side, Hero Inlet on the other andthe glacier on the back, is nearly snow-free much of the summer. On the pointbetween the station and the glacier is a 20-acre area of rock and glacial till known asthe backyard.

Camping around Palmer Station canoften mean being awakened at night. It’snot uncommon for campers to find pen-guins noisily flapping their flippers orpecking on the tents. Elephant seals con-gregate en mass uttering deep-throatedgurgling barks while glacier calvings rum-ble on periodically throughout the night.

But that’s what attracts campers to thebackyard.

“Getting away from the generator noiseof station is one of the best things aboutcamping out,” said Wendy Kozlowski, aresearcher with Phytoplankton Ecology

Component (BP-016-P) of the Long TermEcological Research project. “You can hearso many more calvings in the backyard.”

Wendy particularly enjoys waking upaway from the station. The walk back inthe morning takes less than 10 minutes,but it’s a perfect transition.

“It gives me time to gradually get backto people,” she said.

Tents are available onloan from station recre-ation supplies, but peopletenting out the entire sum-mer bring their own. UVdegradation has been lessdamaging than high winds.Some tents have been flat-tened, some shredded andothers blown out to sea.

Wind, rain, snow, dark-ness and things that go flapin the night make campingout less than inviting.

“The hardest part is get-ting motivated to go outwhen you have a nice warm comfy bedclose by on station,” confesses LauraHamilton. “But as soon as I get past T-5(the last building) I’m really glad I wentout because of the beautiful sunsets.”

It’s not just the natural splendor or pri-vacy that draws people to tents in thebackyard. The tent crawl is part of thecamping ritual that has its own appeal.Usually once or twice a summer, backyardcampers cluster together at one tent sitesharing jokes, stories and favorite bever-ages.

Slowly the party moves from one tentsite to the next, each taking its turn play-ing host to the group.

Camping also is permitted on several ofthe nearby islands, although care must betaken to avoid the aggressive and agile furseals. With articulating front flippers, theystand erect in similar fashion to a dog.Their snouts, full of sharp, canine-liketeeth, also resemble those of a dog.

Though people occasionally spend anight or two on an island, only the back-yard becomes home for the summer, withits incredible abundance of penguins,seals and roaring glacier calvings.

Science and buildingBy Anne C. LewisPole correspondent

Science and construction continue tobe the driving forces here at the South

Pole.Four South Pole

Facilities, Engineering andMaintenance Centeremployees installed theNANVLF Beacon trans-mitter. Billy Texter, AngieRutherford, Pete Kosonand Mo Madding spent twoweeks on the 5-mile anten-na line, working in –35F to–45F degree weather. Theyguyed 120 aluminummasts, each 16 feet high,into position 200 feet apart,and then strung the antennacable on insulators on the

tops of the masts. The VLF Beacon willenhance other Antarctic upper-atmospher-ic research, such as the automated geo-physical observatories. Once operational,this will be the world’s only VLF transmit-ter operating with a long horizontal anten-na.

In the Quiet Sector, the Ice CoreDrilling Services team commenced ream-ing the second hole and got ready to installthe seismic vault, which will house dataacquisition system electronics and receivepower and fiber cables from the South Polestation. The 5-mile trench from the stationto the drill camp will complete this effort.

Jeffries Solar Observatory, anotherQuiet Sector science project, is again at theSouth Pole. This project operated in 1987,1988, 1990 and 1995. The Jeffries projectobserves the velocity and intensity of sig-nals of the Sun’s surface. Using magneto-optical filters, a small telescope and digitalcameras here at the South Pole, Jeffries isallowed uninterrupted viewing of the sunfor many days through a stable atmosphere.

In Dark Sector science, installation ofthe trend laser continued for the AST/RO

December 15, 2002 The Antarctic Sun • 5

around the continentPALMER SOUTH POLE

McMurdo StationHigh: 37F/3C Low:16F/-9CWind: 26 mph/42 kphWindchill: -20F/-29C

Palmer StationHigh: 41F/5C Low:27F/-3CWind: 49 mph/79kphMelted precipitation: 21 mmSnowfall: 5cm

South Pole StationHigh: -21F/-29C Low:-32F/-36CWind: 16mph/26kph

the week in weather

Mo Madding pauses in front ofan antenna mast.

Photo by Laura Hamilton/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Laura Hamilton’s tent is one of several setup in Palmer’s “backyard.”

Photo by Jack Corbin/Special to The Antarctic Sun

See Pole on page 6

6 • The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

project. The AASTO, AutomatedAstrophysical Site-Testing Observatory, isbeing modified slightly. The sterlingengine that powered the building duringthe last season is being shipped to Dome Calong with one of the sub-millimeter tip-per instruments.

In the Clean Air Sector, data-takingcontinued for long-term climate modelingand diagnostics.

For additional science, let’s find somemeteorites! The Antarctic Search forMeteorites dropped off three field teammembers via Twin Otter in the La Paz Ice

Field region. This search trip will take twoto three days.

Engineers and construction crews areworking around the clock on the new, ele-vated station to meet this summer’s ambi-tious construction schedule. The new sta-tion will replace the South Pole’s land-mark dome. All of these workers deservecommendation on their diligent, thoroughand industrious efforts.

A number of visitors came through townlately, including a group of NationalScience Foundation Board representativesand officers from the U.S. Embassy in NewZealand. Also visiting our station this weekwere two Time magazine reporters and aJapanese television news crew. Seems theSouth Pole is the place to be.

Magdalena Oldendorffheads home from IceBy Peter Bagh

The ship Magdalena Oldendorff leftMuskegbukta-Bay, Antarctica, whereshe’d been stuck since May.

She is proceeding well through the icebelt, which surrounds Antarctica and cur-rently extends up to 500 sea miles.

The ice belt blocked the voyage of theMagdalena Oldendorff in May 2002. It isnow decreasing steadily with the begin-ning of the summer. In many areas thethickness of the ice already thinned downto 30 to 100 cm. At present the local tem-perature is about - 5 degrees on average;the weather conditions are favorable withgood visibility and moderate winds.

In view of the imminent homecoming,the mood of the crew on board the

Magdalena Oldendorff is very good. Thecrew members will be flown home to theirfamilies after arrival in Cape Town. At themoment, the 17 crew members from theUkraine, Russia, Poland, Ghana, theMaldives and Philippines, follow theirusual jobs and shifts on board. Also onboard is an Argentinian doctor who wastransferred from the icebreaker AlmiranteIrizar to Magdalena Oldendorff.

In April this year the MagdalenaOldendorff departed to Antarctica on behalfof the Russian research institute, Arctic andAntarctic Research Institute (AARI), tosupply several research stations in the Southpolar region with provisions and equipmentand to take 79 Russian scientists back toCape Town. Since the beginning of July, thevessel was firmly placed in the safeMuskegbukta-Bay on the border of the iceshelf. Thereupon, 89 of the originally 107persons on board had been flown out byhelicopters of the South African Air Forceand were brought back to Cape Town.

Chilean airdrop

The Armadade Chile P-3plane flew overPalmer Station onits way to theChilean station atCarvajal, where itdropped a rubberbarrel containingn e w s p a p e r s ,magazines and asix-pack of CocaCola.

Pole From page 5

If you could select anartist, writer or performer to come toAntarctica, who wouldit be and why?

“Christo, the guywho drapes fabric

on landscapes. Nowthat the snow is

melted, the groundis brown. It needs

something.”David Moore

McMurdo senior mate-rials person fromVolcano, Hawaii

“We need MarilynManson. He claims him-self the anti-Christ and Ithink it could be produc-

tive to his career andmusic to confront the envi-ronment on the planet thatis most indifferent to life.”

Solan JensenSouth Pole general assistant

from Juneau, Ak.

“Sheryl Crow, becauseshe is the Queen ofRock and Roll. She

could come down forIcestock. Besides, everyman needs a fantasy.”

Gary JirschelePalmer maintenance

specialist from Park Falls,Wis.

Photo by Kristan Hutchison/The Antarctic Sun

Carpenter’s apprentice Jamie Whisnantfrom Yreka, Calif., breaks from sanding the ceiling drywall for a breath of fresh air.

OTHER COUNTRIES

Dropping a barrel fromthe P-3.

Photo by Andras Rivera

December 15, 2002 The Antarctic Sun • 7

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

Outside Ted Scambos’ office hangs aplaydough map of Antarctica, its surfacea wavy pattern where his 7-year-old sonpressed the dough into shape. Scambosand several other glaciologists justreturned from investigating a similar rip-ple pattern on the continent itself.

The phenomenon, called megadunes,was first noticed by pilots flying over thecontinent in the 1950s and 60s. Nobodyrealized how large a part of the continentthe megadunes covered until a satelliteimage was taken in the 1980s.

“It looked like a big fingerprint,” saidScambos, a glaciologist with theNational Snow and Ice Data Center inBoulder, Colo. “There’s one patch that’sabout the size of California.”

Megadunes cover about 500,000square kilometers of Antarctica, thebiggest chunk being an area just west ofthe Transantarctic Mountains. Scambosand team members Mark Fahnestock,Mary Albert, Christopher Shuman andRob Bauer were in that area for twoweeks to set up wind and weather instru-ments, dig snow pits and ice cores, col-lect samples of the ice crystals andtrapped gases, and use GlobalPositioning Systems and ground pene-trating radar to monitor and measure thedunes themselves.

They found working out of tents inone of the coldest regions of Antarctica,with summer temperatures from –30F to–15F, more difficult than expected. Theflight carrying their science instrumentswas delayed because of weather and bythe time it arrived, the researchers hadonly two days left to work in the field.

Despite the problems, walking amongthe dunes gave the glaciologists a betterunderstanding of the phenomenon. Evencalling them “megadunes” may not beaccurate, Scambos said after looking atthem.

“Zebra stripes is maybe a betterdescription,” he said. “They seem to bebands of accumulation with wind-swept

areas in-between.”The banding pattern could be seen

from the air, looking like shadows castby strips of cloud, but the sky was clear,Scambos said. Though the megadunescan be seen from the air, they are so largethey just appear as patchy terrain on theground. These dunes are 2 to 3 milesfrom crest to crest and up to 13 feet (4meters) high. They can stretch 62 miles(100 km) long. The rise and fall is sogradual the dunes appear flat to a personstanding in their midst.

“People had traversed it before, butthey didn’t recognize it because they didn’t see the big picture,” Scambos said.

The megadunes become importantbecause it’s quite possible that the icechemistry, formation and layering aredifferent than the rest of the ice.Researchers using ice cores to study theclimate record could unwittingly take acore from a dune and get faulty results.

“It’s sort of a curiosity,” saidFahnestock, a glaciologist with theUniversity of Maryland. “It becomespretty intriguing, because if the snowgets reworked that much by the atmos-phere, that can kind of play havoc withthe climate record.”

Only a few studies have discussed themegadunes before, and the glaciologistsweren’t sure what they’d find. They hadplenty of theories, though. For one thing,they were pretty sure the gravity-drivenkatabatic winds that move down theplateau play a part in creating the dunes,but not in the same way wind normallycreates dunes. Sand dunes generally formwhen the wind blows sand grains intolarge piles. The megadunes are too shal-low to be formed that way, and there alsoisn’t enough snow on that part of theplateau to be piled up.

Instead, Scambos and Fahnestockpostulated the downward flow of thekatabatic wind was initially disrupted bysmall hills in the ice. That may havecaused the katabatic wind to begin tobounce as it flowed down the plateau,

See Megadunes on page 8

“The mmost mmessed-uup ssnow oon tthe pplateau”

Megadunes

“Zebra sstripes iismaybe aa bbetterdescription.”

— TTed SScambos, glaciologist

From the air, broad bands of dark andlight snow are visible. These megadunescover much of Antarctica, but are only

beginning to be studied.

8 • The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

creating the even rippling effect. That high on the plateau, thewinds blow steadily from 20 to 30 knots all winter.

“Right now what we think is that it’s sort of a pattern of etch-ing,” Scambos said before visiting the dunes.

After returning from the dunes, he’s not so sure.“It’s harder to imagine it’s just the atmospheric influence,” he

said.The upwind sides of the dunes have a rough surface of meter-

high sastrugi, with fine snow grains. Like rock in other parts ofAntarctica, the sastrugi were carved into fantastic shapes by thewind.

“It was like a day at the zoo when we went there, because theylooked like dolphins and whales,” Albert said.

The downwind slopes are almost the opposite, with a glassy,glazed surface a couple inches deep.

“It’s not like an ice-skating rink; it’s not that smooth. It’s morelike cement,” Albert said. “Even the Twin Otter landing hardlyleft a mark in the snow.”

Digging a snow pit below the glazed surface, the glaciologistsfound hoare frost going down four meters, the equivalent of 100to 300 years. The coarse crystals were up to 0.8 inch (1 cm)across, Albert said, compared to the typical (1 mm) crystalsfound in other areas.

“It’s because they’ve been exposed and weathered for solong,” Albert said.

The coarse crystals may have developed from seasonal tem-perature changes, which allow some of the snow to turn to watervapor in the summer. The vapor would rise up through the snowpack, and then refreeze in the winter, slowly burying the coarse,recrystallized ice below, Scambos said. Albert is bringing an icecore sample home to test its permeability.

“There’s no way this snow wouldn’t be near record-breakingin terms of permeability,” Scambos said.

The ice is porous enough that it is possible some wind is pass-ing through the snow itself. The glazed surface was riddled withexpansion cracks, and in some places open holes, like gophertunnels, dropped into the ice, large enough to stick an arm in upto the shoulder, Scambos said.

“There’s a chance there’s air drifting underneath the surface,”

Scambos said.If that’s true, then the wind could be changing the chemistry

of the snow.“This is possibly the most messed up snow on the plateau,”

Fahnestock said.Messed up as it is, the snow may be similar to what glaciolo-

gists like Richard Alley of Penn State find when they look backmillions of years into the ice core record from Vostok, SipleDome and Taylor Dome. Those areas appear to have had periodsof extremely low accumulation with large crystal formation too.Studying how the climate signal gets put down in the megadunes,an area of extreme dry and cold, could help glaciologists read thepast better.

“I just think they’re doing really fundamental research,” Alleysaid. “Let’s go to one of the most extreme places in Antarcticaand make sure we understand it.”

It will take a couple more visits before the glaciologists dounderstand the megadunes.

“They’re there and they’re something like what we thought,but we still don’t have the big answers,” said Scambos, whosegrant includes another field season. “It’s still hard to imagine howthese things are formed.”

Megadunes From page 7

Large, wind-carved sastrugiclutter the whiter, rougherbands of snow, left, whilebelow a glassy sheen on thedownwind slopes create thedarker bands.

Photo courtesy of Mary Albert/Special to the Antarctic Sun

Photo courtesy of Mary Albert/Special to The Antarctic Sun

December 15, 2002 The Antarctic Sun • 9

echoes help scientists studybedrock and other geologic phe-nomena.

“(We may find) informationabout layers beneath the ice or eventidbits about history,” said glaciolo-gist Don Voight.

Researchers are looking forchanges in reflections that helpthem “see” beneath the thick icesheet and into the sediment on theEarth’s surface.

“Rock will sound different thanmud,” said Anandakrishnan, “andcrystal rocks will also sound differ-ent.”

Some ice streams in EastAntarctica flow over crystallinerock that creates enough friction toinhibit the rate of flow. In WestAntarctica, however, many streamslie on slippery surfaces of mud,allowing them to flow faster than ifthey had crystallized surfaces.

In addition to obtaining bedrockinformation, researchers can deter-mine the thickness of the ice basedon the time it takes for the vibrationsto travel from the surface of the iceto the rock or mud below the ice.

Speeding through ice at 2.5 miles(4 km) a second, the sound takesabout one second to travel down andreturn to the surface if the ice is 1.2miles (2 km) thick. In comparison,the speed of sound echoing throughthe air is 980 feet (300 m) per second.

“(The speed of sound in ice) isfaster than in the Grand Canyon,”said Anandakrishnan.

At 300 meters a second, an echowould cross a 900-meter canyon inthree seconds and then take anotherthree seconds to return, he said.

In-the-field Before the explosions begin, a

five-member team from Ice CoreDrilling Services traverses the 62-mile (100-km) wide Ice Stream D,stopping to drill holes for dynamite.

Working ahead of the scientists,the drillers make their way along thethree pre-determined lines that crossIce Stream D, making holes every984 feet (300 m). Each line takesabout two weeks, and once finished,the holes average 30 to 40 metersdeep.

OnsetD From page 1

See OnsetD on page 10

Photo by Melanie Conner/The Antarctic Sun

Driller Jay Johnson talks with a Raytheon Polar Services Co. employee at Onset D field camp. The drillers, scientists andcamp crew work together to coordinate logistics of drilling, conducting science and living in the field.In the backgrounddrillers monitor a drill rig as it penetrates the ice.

“There is noplume of snow,but it creates a

‘ka-umph’sound.”

— Shridar Anandakrishnan,glaciologist

Snow extracted by the drill forms ballsthat resemble hail stones.

Photo by Melanie Conner,/The Antarctic Sun

10 • The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

“It shouldn’t be a problem (for the scientists) finding the holes,”said Melissa Rider, assistant manager for field science support.“The scientists have their precise GPS locations and the holes aremarked with bamboo flags and covered with a plywood cover.”

The scientists travel along each line, lowering dynamite-packed cylinders about an inch in diameter into the holes and thensetting them off.

Researchers want to send energy deep into the ice, suppressingloud booms or spraying snow.

“You can’t really see the blasts, but if you stand nearby youcan feel it and hear it,” said Anandakrishnan. “There is no plumeof snow, but it creates a ‘ka-umph’ sound.”

Seismic waves are produced by a sudden jolt of energy, suchas an earthquake. But Anandakrishnan and his colleagues arelooking for phenomena a few meters away from the source ofseismic activity.

“You can wait for an earthquake, but those characteristics arenot good for looking at ‘big picture’ stuff,” said Anandakrishnan.“You need a local source of energy of your own. You have to usea short, sharp crack to produce energy useful to us.”

When the dynamite explodes, the reflection data is stored inthe hard drives of nearby computers connected to geophones by acable emerging from the ice. Inside the baseball-sized geophones,or seismic recorders located just under the snow, sensitive instru-ments react to the explosions. Sensors measure how much theinstruments move.

Walking along a row of holes with shovels, digging up andreplanting geophones for the next blasting site, the team membersmore closely resemble gardeners planting potatoes than scientistsprofiling the Earth’s surface beneath the ice stream.

“It’s very labor intensive,” said Anandakrishnan. “We walk upand down the line digging them up and reburying them. We’replanting geophones.”

Arduous as the work may be, scientists hope that bed profilingwill help them understand how the streams are affecting the sta-bility of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

“To the naked eye, it all looks very similar. We just want toknow why this and this are moving fast and this is not,” saidAnandakrishnan. “That’s all we’re doing.”

OnsetD From page 9

John Robinson, driller for Ice Core Driller Services for theUniversity of Wisconsin, drills a hole into Ice Stream D. Thedrillers work ahead of scientists, who follow with explosives to conduct seismic research.

Photo by Melanie Conner/The Antarctic Sun

Last chance to enterthe Antarctic photo and writing festival

No time to procrastinate!

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4 WWrriittiinngg categories: PPooeettrryy (up to 30 lines)mmiiccrrooffiiccttiioonn (short stories up to 300 words)nnoonn-ffiiccttiioonn (true stories, essays, journal entries,letters home, memos...up to 300 words)hhaaiikkuu (traditional 5-7-5 syllable poems)

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December 15, 2002 The Antarctic Sun • 11

oceans, redistributes heat, saltand other properties. Theamount and intensity of heattransferred from the equator tothe poles by this mega-currentinfluences temperature and rain-fall, so understanding theAntarctic Circumpolar Currentis important for global climatestudies.

Sprintall’s studies focus onthe Drake Passage, locatedbetween the northernmost tip ofthe Antarctic Peninsula and thesouthernmost tip of SouthAmerica. The Drake Passage issignificant because it is one ofthe few choke points for the cur-rent. A choke point is a channelcapturing the entire flow of acurrent and is considered aprized phenomenon in oceano-graphic circles. All water goingaround in the Southern Oceanhas to pass through the DrakePassage, thereby yielding avaluable cross-section of theAntarctic Circumpolar Current.

Sprintall utilizes instrumentson board two United StatesAntarctic Program research vessels, the Laurence M. Gould andthe Nathaniel B. Palmer. For information on current tempera-tures, foot-long, “torpedo-like” Expendable Bathythermographs,or XBTs, are sent down from the Gould. Attached to a 3,300-foot-(1,000 m.)-long copper wire, the probes send data back to acomputer onboard as the ship continues to move, until the wireeventually snaps.

The structure of the upper currents of the AntarcticCircumpolar Current is also of interest to Sprintall. The velocityof these currents is gauged using hull-mounted Acoustic DopplerCurrent Profilers. The Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler sendsdown a pulse of four directed sonar beams and measures the fre-quency of the pulses reflected back. Changes in travel time arerelated to water density changes and thus shifts in ocean currents.The “ping data” generated by the Acoustic Doppler CurrentProfiler is monitored remotely and used to map the structure ofthe Antarctic Circumpolar Current.

Three distinct bands of water make up the AntarcticCircumpolar Current, the SubAntarctic Front, the Polar Front andthe Southern Antarctic Front. Maps of eddy energy are includedwithin research objectives since eddies, sometimes reaching up to93 miles (150 kilometers) in diameter, mix momentum and heatacross the current.

With seven years of data, Sprintall said they are only now get-ting to the point where they can begin to build any kind of big-picture scenario, although to look at anything with regard to long-term climate change requires at least a decade of data, she cau-tioned.

While the Gould crosses the 435-mile (700 kilometers) DrakePassage, the Palmer can be anywhere in the circumpolar region,and falls primarily under the domain of leading ocean currentexpert, Eric Firing, conducting his work out of the University ofHawaii at Manoa.

“We are taking advantage of whatever tracks and travels these

ships have,” said Firing of theGould and the Palmer, which areused to support a wide range ofoceanographic studies, includingthe delivery of supplies and trans-portation of personnel.

“Before this program, therewere very few current measure-ments in the circumpolar region.We are simply grabbing somemeasurements very cheaply thatmight turn out to be interesting,especially in the aggregate.”

Included in these measure-ments is thermosalinographicdata, because heat and salinity arecritical for the vertical movementof fluid, or convection, a primarymode of heat redistribution. Thecolder and more saline a body ofwater is, the denser it is. Thiscold, dense water sinks in thepolar regions and is replaced byfresh water. A balance betweensaline water and fresh water keepsthe conveyor alive and well and isnecessary for redistribution ofheat from the equator to the poles,so there is a threshold for justhow much fresh water any ocean

current can take without it turning into a wishy washy affair.An increase in fresh water caused by global warming, for

example, could lead to a reduction in circulation by threateningto reduce the salinity of the surface waters. Computerized mod-els for a doubling of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmos-phere depict a reduction in circulation in the AntarcticCircumpolar Current from 20 to 50 percent. A weakened circula-tion also dilutes the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon diox-ide and other greenhouse gases, further compromising the cli-mate system’s ability to bail humans out. While it is possibleglobal warming has a natural component, the dramatic increasecorrelates more substantially with the 31 percent boost in tropos-pheric levels of carbon dioxide since pre-industrial times as wellas the outstanding heat-trapping prowess of carbon dioxide.

Research with regard to the Antarctic Circumpolar Currentwill eventually include the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave, whichhas been shown to occur at the same time as the El Nino -Southern Oscillation. It has also been linked with weather pat-terns over the major land masses in the Southern Hemisphere.The Antarctic Circumpolar Wave is a cycle the current goesthrough in its approximately eight-year journey aroundAntarctica. Recently discovered through satellite imagery, thewave rides on and in the same direction as the AntarcticCircumpolar Current. It is characterized by a slight rise in sea sur-face temperature and pressure.

Besides predicting weather variations around the globe, futureresearch on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current may provideinformation to better ascertain the effects human-induced warm-ing may wield on the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave, and thus cli-mate change, in the long run.

Andrea Baer is a journalist from Honolulu with a BS in biolo-gy from the University of Hawaii. She is working this season as adining attendant at McMurdo Station.

Current From page 1

Illustration from the Byrd Polar Research Center

The route of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its threezones.

With a nickname

like Daisy, itseemed predes-tined that A l l a n

Day would end up workingon the telescope of the samename at the South Pole.

Daisy gained the nick-name as a boy in Engonia,a small town near theQueensland border inAustralia where his parentsraised sheep. The districtcontained about 20,000square miles (51,800square kilometers) and 500people.

“There’s a store and arace course there. That’s it,” Daisy said. “The store sells fuel,everything - milk, bread.”

The district had no school. The only options were to send kidsaway to boarding school or homeschool with the “School of Air”curriculum broadcast over the radio.

“We got sent to boarding school,” Daisy said. “That’s prettyrough when you’re about 6.”

It was too tough. Daisy’s parents ended up moving to Sydneyso the children could attend school while living at home. Thetransition from the country to the city was difficult for Daisy andevery chance he had he would go back to the bush.

“It’s trouble for a kid from the country who doesn’t wearshoes to go to a school where you have to wear hats and glovesand ties and blazers,” Daisy said.

When he graduated 15 years ago, Daisy got a job making“bits and pieces” for Australian Telescope National Facility, agovernment-funded radio astronomy agency. With time hebecame the cryogenics expert and was moved to Narrabri inNew South Wales to work on the compact array telescope at thePaul Wild Observatory there.

With 7,000 people mostly farming wheat, cotton and sheep,Narrabri suited Daisy fine.

“We don’t have traffic lights. We just upgraded to threeroundabouts,” Daisy said. “To have a job that works with realhigh-tech things and be in the country is just the ultimate. Youcan’t ask for better.”

Daisy spends most of his time working on the telescope array15 miles (25 km) from town or riding his Australian spot horse,Vespa, around his 600-acre (240 hectare) ranch. He has 60 here-ford cows, nine horses and whatever wild animals decide tovisit.

“Kangaroos, parrots, emus, all the Australian animals livethere, helping themselves to whatever they can find,” Daisy said.

To better cover the country’s wide-open distances, Daisyrecently earned his pilot’s license.

“I’ve got a runway and a hangar and a windsock, but I haven’tgot a plane yet,” said Daisy, who plans to build his own some-day.

The telescope Daisyworks on in Narrabri hassix 22-meter dishes on atrack 2 miles (3km) long,so the configuration can bechanged depending onwhat is needed. It works onthe same principle as theDASI telescope, which iswhy he was hired last sum-mer to work on the DASItelescope. He found heliked the South Pole.

“I like quiet sort ofplaces,” said Daisy. “It’snot all that different fromhome. It’s just really coldinstead of really hot.”

The Pole’s –76F (–60C) ambient temperatures are somethingof a relief after the 118F (48C) heat at home, which cools to 95F(35C) at night.

“It’s harder to come home than it is to come here, to get usedto the heat,” Daisy said.

Though some know him by his nickname, Daisy, many at thePole just know him as “the Aussie.”

“Allan Day sparkles. I just think he’s a gem,” said BobMorse, the principal researcher for the AMANDA project, whoworks in the Mapo building with Daisy. “He brings a sense ofhumor, levity, insanity. Aussies seem to be infected with a senseof good spirit.”

Even when he isn’t trying, Daisy’s broad brogue andAustralian sayings crack people up.

“I don’t really know what I say that’s so funny, but everybodylaughs a lot,” Daisy said. “I get a lot of vacant looks from thingsI say.”

On the other hand, he can’t always understand the Americanaccents, particularly over the loudspeaker.

“I’m forever asking, ‘What did she say?’” Daisy said.He has plenty of time to figure it out, since Daisy is staying

for the winter this year.“I want to see the Southern auroras, like everyone else does,”

he said.He may be better off for now at South Pole station than at

home. The week he arrived at the South Pole a storm ripped theroof off his home, back on the ranch. The next week a lighten-ing storm started a fire that burnt 50 acres (20 hectares) of hisland.

“Not much you can do, is there, even if I was home,” Daisysaid.

Over the winter he plans to make a model of Capt. JamesCook’s ship, the Endeavour, and to learn to type properly. Hewill also be creating next year’s marker for the geographic SouthPole, which has to be replaced each year as the ice moves.

“I told Bill (Henriksen) I was going to make it out of frozenVegemite,” Daisy said. “Everyone seems to think Vegemite isterrible stuff here. I love it.”

12• The Antarctic Sun December 15, 2002

ProfileBy Kristan Hutchison/Sun staff

D a i s y , D a s i , s h o w m ey o u r t e l e s c o p e d o

Allen “Daisy” Day stands in front of the DASI telescope at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

Photo by Melanie Conner/The Antarctic Sun