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.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Ice on the Horizon

We are still in Christchurch after our flight this morning was cancelled yet again. Yes, it's nice to sleep in, but we're starting to get a bit antsy. To kill time we've been doing some work and just got back from a sunny picnic lunch in a park.

Good news, though: Our flight has been scheduled for tonight! That is, the shuttle will pick us up at our hotel around 12:45 am to make sure we are at the airport at 1:30 am for a flight at around 4 am. So (in theory) we should get to McMurdo for a tasty Thanksgiving lunch.

To keep you readers happy, here are a few more photos of the last couple days and a map to see where we've been. Zoom in on Christchurch to find Lyttelton and Taylor's Mistake on the small peninsula near Christchurch. Yesterday we went north up to Kaikoura on highway 1 (side trip to Gore Bay, lunch in Cheviot) and came back south via 70 and 7 near Hanmer Springs.


View Larger Map

Jenny blends in with the driftwood at Taylor's Mistake.

A fur seal at the Kaikoura seal colony.

Folding in the limestone at Kaikoura. There were some awesome chevron folds nearby, but the zoom on my camera couldn't quite get them.

Clear water, stone beaches, and limestone cliffs at Kaikoura.

A view from on top of the cliffs really shows the limestone bank and it's complex channels.
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