About this Blog

This blog is dedicated to a research expedition to the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica. Through field mapping of geomorphic evidence, sample collection, and cosmogenic nuclide concentration measurements in the Noble Gas Lab at Harvard, we hope to better understand the behavior of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during Miocene (~23 to 5 million years ago) and Pliocene (~5-1.8 mya) times. The Early Pliocene is the most recent period in which global temperatures were significantly warmer than the present, therefore providing us with a potential analog for a warming climate. This research is generously funded by the NSF Polar Science Program.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Science Young'uns at Play

Last night we celebrated Thanksgiving at McMurdo by stuffing ourselves with turkey, dressing, and shrimp cocktail (an unusual, yet well appreciated addition to the traditional fare), and getting to meet a few more of the other researchers down here. One of whom - Paul, a post doc glaciologist originially from NC - dubbed us "science young'uns" due to our relative lack of experience, schooling and age.
Today, Allen and I went for a hike around Castle Rock to take advantage of the blue skies and warm weather (28 degrees F). Here's a map of where we went:
The +'s on the map are emergency shelters stocked with food, sleeping bags, and a phone line to McMurdo. The base would be just off the map to the bottom left.

Vast expanse of ice - I would say it's about yea big.

Castle Rock, in the upper right. The thing in the cloud on the upper left is Mount Erebus (a volcano).


Allen loves Mount Erebus.

Ice ridge and snow-covered ridge in the distance - Allen Pope for scale (he would be standing closer but we're not supposed to leave the flagged routes for fear of crevasses and other dangers).

Scott base is the Kiwi (New Zealand) Antarctic base just down the road from McMurdo. It's much smaller than McMurdo (~100 people in high season) and all of the buildings are green. Don't be deceived though; the insides are quite nice, or at least the store and the bathrooms where we were allowed to go.

P.S. Allen and I are starting to coauthor our posts...
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1 comment:

Peter Hedman said...

Wow! What vast expanses of ice! What large cloud-capped volcanoes! What an abundance of sunlight! What vast quantities of freshwater! So barren - so inhospitable!

Antarctica looks absolutely incredible. Best of luck on tramping about the frozen continent and exploring the Dry Valleys.

December 1, 2008 at 5:49 PM

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