Commonwealth Glacier

About a week ago, the glacier gurus (Hassan & Liz) and I took a short helicopter trip down-valley to the Commonwealth glacier. This is another exit glacier of the ice sheet that spills out of the mountains into the Taylor Valley. We all had slightly different agendas, but we helped each other out with everything and got done in much less than the eight hours of ground time we were allotted.

Hassan had to fix some of the instrumentation on the meteorological station. It had snowed the night before, but the skies were clear this day and it was windy -- thus the "diamond dust" was kicking up. In the picture of Hassan, you can actually see the snow that was kicked up -- it's all the shiny white specs on the picture.




Hassan and I both helped Liz drill here cryoconite hole cores.

Cryoconite holes are formed when sediments on the glacier lower the albedo of the ice it covers and the area melts down. It usually forms a cylindrical hole that regains ice cover in the winter. The melt cycles allow there to be build up of organic matter (largely algae blown up from the lakes) and they form little mini-nutrient reservoirs. Theoretically they could sustain life in the form of bacteria or algae under the right conditions.


While Hassan and Liz were drilling a series of holes, I was exploring for sediment traps when I came across a mummified seal. On top of the glacier. I have no idea how it got there. The routes to the top are pretty easily accessible by foot, but it seems a bit... difficult for seals. Stranger things have happened, though.

We finished about an hour earlier than we were scheduled for helicopter pick-up, so Liz and I tooks naps. We woke up to Hassan flying his retro kite as the winds had picked up just enough to fly it.

Home & Two Hikes

I arrived via helicopter to Lake Hoare in the Taylor Dry Valley on November 15. In the day-and-a-half I have been here, I've been on two major hikes and set up camp.
The camp is near the shore of Lake Hoare, one of the terminal lakes in the Dry Valleys. It's major source of water is the ephemeral streams that flow off the Canada glaciers. Since the camp manager had to run up to another lake to clean up an oil spill (a really big deal in the area), my first order of business was setting up my camp.
This proved to be easier said than done since the sand is difficult to drive stakes into. Thus, all my guy-lines are secured to rocks. It works quite well when combined with the trucker's hitches that we learned how to make in Snow School to secure them. It's a little loose, and thus loud when the wind blows, but it's nothing my ipod can't drown out. At least until we get a katabatic -- then it might get a little too loud.



















I've been getting questions about what we do for water. Well, the Canada glacier (the big hunk of ice in background of the picture of my Chateau) is fresh water and is calving near the margin. So we collect the "glacier berries" and pile them near the main hut both on the lake and in a tarp-lined box outside the main hut. As we need to, we pull them in and melt them in a huge metal pot in the main hut. Then we either purify it for drinking water, boil it for tea and cooking, or leave it plain for hand- and dishwashing. It tastes a lot better than the snow we were melting for drinking water during snow school!

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On Saturday after I set up my Chateau, the Limno Team (they look at the chemistry of the lakes as part of the MCM-LTER) invited me on a hike up to the Canada glacier. I, of course, took them up on the offer.


The climb up was pretty steep. More vertical than I've done since my other trips to Antarctica and for a more extended period of time. It was neat to see the glacial moraines in this setting. The moraine to the left is a lateral moraine that formed as the glacier moved into the valley.

The view from the top was amazing. It was a clear day, so you could see all the way across McMurdo Sound to Mt. Erebus, which was steaming away. We also ran into the crevasse that the glaciology team (Hassan and Liz) had just flagged a few hours prior.

According to Hassan, the crevasse has been there for several years, but is bigger than expected. They also came across a formation that they think is a moulin, which is kind of scary. Moulins are one of the ways that water gets to the base of a glacier, except they aren't really seen in the Antarctic environment and glaciers. Global warming?




The hike down was pretty intense. Hiking up may be hard on the muscles, but hiking down really tests my ability to remain on my feet.

But I made it safely. Only one major spill, but all four of us managed to fall at the same spot. The ground was icey and we just couldn't keep our feet under us. No one was hurt, though!

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Sunday is usually the day of rest. Since I just got here, however, I decided to take a hike with multiple meanings: 1) it got me out and about and active, 2) I got to figure out how to use my crampons and break in my mountaineering boots, and 3) I got to do some reconnaissance on my sampling in the Lake Hoare/Lake Chad basin.














The lake ice is really beautiful. It's not quite moat season yet (when there will be liquid water around the margins of the lakes), but you can definitely see where the ice is starting to sublime and melt to a certain extent. This is especially true where there is any sediment on the lake surface. The dark color lowers the albedo of the ice and increases melting where the sediments are making an extremely uneven central portion.

Where the moats form, the ice is almost crystal clear. In most places you could see all the way down to the algal mats on the lake beds. One of the explanations I've heard for the bubbles in the ice is that the algal mats effervesce (CO₂ in photosynthesizers) and as the gas bubbles force their way to the surface, their paths are preserved in the ice. This makes sense, theoretically, since ice is technically a fluid. Interesting!














The temperatures and wind weren't too bad until "twilight" hit. This occurs around 2-3PM when the sun makes it's way behind the Asgard Mountains and dims the valley for a bit. But all in all, the hike went very well. Sampling will be easy because there is dust everywhere on the Lake Hoare/Lake Chad complex.

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I can see why scientists have been using the Dry Valleys as an analogue for Mars. When I opened my tent this morning the landscape directly outside my tent looked suspiciously like the pictures of Martian soils I've seen in textbooks. With the exception of the fresh water Canada glacier and the fact that I was breathing, it could have fooled me.

McMurdo Firsts

Hello from McMurdo Station!

The flights from Columbus to New Zealand went incredibly smooth. There were no delays -- we even made it in early on the trans-Pacific flight.

The flight to the continent was on a US Air Force-run C17 and took right at five hours. We arrived in McMurdo on November 10 at a balmy 5^oF/-15^oC.

The next day I went into Happy Camper Academy... AKA Snow School where we learned about protocol for field camps and how to handle emergencies. These included building snow shelters and using the emergency gear provided to all people headed out on helicopters. One of the scenarios involved a simulated search and rescue mission for a person going missing during Condition 1 weather -- basically a white out. We "created" the white out by putting five-gallon buckets on our heads. It was incredibly difficult, but we found the "patient" and got him back in to safety.

More later! Despite the fact that it is 23:00 here, the sun is still high in the sky. Well, lower to the horizon, as it is our "twilight" but still bright as day... it definitely takes getting used to!

A Return to Dominica

I had a really weird dream last night that was set in Dominica. When I woke up, I remembered this random moment in Dominica that I didn't share. I'll do it now.

To get to many of the beaches that we worked on, we had to hike through the jungle. On one such hike out to Rosalie Beach we learned more than our fair share about the temperament of the livestock in the area. Or, as we referred to them, the Jungle Cows.

Dominica itself has very little flat land and even less land for pasture. Most of the island is covered in rain forest greenery and tropical fruit plantations (bananas, mangoes, starfruit, papayas), so it was common to see cattle tied up in cricket fields along the side of the road or along trails.























This particular Jungle Cow was less than happy with our need to access the beach and decided to stand his ground. He head butted my friend a couple of times, though luckily his horns were not filly developed or sharp. It was disconcerting, however, to be essentially attacked by a cow in the middle of the jungle.

Lesson learned: don't mess with the cows.

Interestingly, Rosalie Beach is also home to an endangered green sea turtle nesting area. There are two conservancy interns that live within 0.5 km of the nesting site and take twelve-hour shifts. Sea turtle is a delicacy in the Antilles and the concern is that the eggs will be stolen, hatched, and eaten. One of the interns who helped us out while we were working in the area told us that the hatchlings would be heading oceanward and invited us back on the full moon to witness the crossing.















The majority of our group returned to Rosalie on the night of the full moon and were not disappointed. Hundreds of little greens made it to the water and, hopefully, well out to sea undisturbed.

On another note, the full moon reflecting on the black sand beach (above, left) is one of the more breathtaking sites I've seen. Right up there with the full moon night hike at White Sands National Monument on July 4th. The gypsum dunes were glowing and reflected the fireworks from Las Cruces, NM.