Off the Ice!

Well we made it to New Zealand finally! I was getting worried last night because the flight down here was given a two-hour weather delay, but everything proceeded normally after that. We never did figure out where the supposed weather problems were at, since it was blue skies in McMurdo and the online weather report for Christchurch was the same.

This morning, we had to be at the post office building in McMurdo at 2:30 AM for transport. After an hour-long ride in the back of a large vehicle called a Delta, we made it out to the Pegasus Ice Runway. For some reason, they like to get you out to the runway super early so the plane wasn't even there yet. We got to the runway at about 3:45 AM and the plane finally got there at 4:15. It was fun to watch a huge plane like the C-17 land on an ice runway though.

C-17 touching down at Pegasus

Finishing up the loading of the plane with cargo while the crowd waits to board

They proceeded to unload all of the passengers, unload all of the cargo that is staying in Antarctica, and load up cargo headed north with us, all while we were standing around waiting.

Waiting for 2 hours to board

Finally, they let us board at about 5:30 AM. There were 120 passengers on our flight, which is very full when you consider all of the pallets of cargo that were loaded on as well. I was in one of the normal airline seats in the center of the plane for this trip instead of sitting along the wall like last time. We lucked out because the only empty seat on the whole plane was in our row so we were able to pile our bags onto that seat, giving us more leg room.

Looking forward from my seat

It's interesting flying on a military jet. We didn't have any sort of security screening this time around (when we left Christchurch to go down to the ice, we went through a metal detector and they x-rayed our carry-on). They tell you to put on your seat belt and they go over the safety procedures, but no one comes around to check that you are properly belted or that you have your tray table upright or anything like that. They don't care when you use your electronic devices, so you can rock out on your iPod from take-off to landing. There's only one bathroom for everyone to share, no one delivers a soda to your seat, and you can essentially see the innards of the plane from your seat. The normal airline style seat that I was in is loaded onto the plane just like the rest of the cargo, mounted on some type of rolling platform that shifts around when the plane moves. It is pretty minor, but occasionally it can give you a little jolt when the sliding platform suddenly runs out of room to move. It is also fun to see who else is on your flight. The majority of the passengers were with the U.S. Antarctic Program, but there were also people with New Zealand, France, and Australia's programs. I was particularly interested by some of the emergency exits, as you can see in the picture.

A blurry picture of one of the emergency exits. Apparently, all you need is an axe and a blank spot in the wall! I don't think you could get away with that on a civilian jet... They do have more traditional emergency exits in the front and rear of the plane

We finally took off at about 6 AM. I slept for most of the flight. We landed at about 11 AM in Christchurch.

Even though we were technically considered to have been in New Zealand the whole time as far as our visa status goes (you don't need a passport to go to the continent of Antarctica), we still had to go through customs and New Zealand's biosecurity when we got back. Another flight arrived from Singapore at about the same time so the lines for both of them were long.

After we finished up, we headed over to the Clothing Distribution Center to change out of the Extreme Cold Weather gear we were required to wear for the flight and to return all of the gear that we had borrowed before we left. I feel like I'm traveling light now that I got rid of all of that stuff!

Since then, we've checked in to our hotel (I'm staying within walking distance of the airport), had lunch at the International Antarctic Centre (I guess we can't get enough of Antarctica!), and now I think we're going to go for a swim! It's nice to have plants outside and birds chirping! It looks like Byron is going to take off tonight to head up to Auckland. He's staying in New Zealand for a sabbatical so this will probably be the last time I see him.

While we were on the flight up here, one of the travel agents booked me for my flights. I leave tomorrow for home but won't get there until Tuesday evening.

Flight Problems

Well I'm not leaving Mactown tonight either.

Last night, our flight was delayed due to weather and to wait for the injured fishermen to arrive at McMurdo. The flight was rescheduled for tonight, but we got the news this evening that we aren't leaving until Sunday night because of mechanical problems. Not sure how a plane breaks down while it's sitting on a tarmac but apparently it happened!

It looks like I've got time to kill in Antarctica. Maybe I should check out the movie schedule!

As for the fishermen, they were finally able to pick them up via helicopter this morning (the helicopters couldn't pick them up last night because of the weather) and take them up to Christchurch on a LC-130. I think that they might have been dropped off by the helicopter right at the runway. I didn't see them arrive or anything. Here's a news story about it http://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/194304/fishing-boat-burns-victims-way-christchurch

I went on a walk today down the Scott Base and then on the Observation Hill loop. It took about 3 hours. Saw a bunch of seals and some skuas.

Penguins!

After we finished cleaning up the lab, I decided to take the 10-minute walk down to Hut Point to see if there were any penguins hanging out. As I looked over the ridge down to the sea ice, there was a group of three of them!

These penguins are called Adélie Penguins, which are pretty small penguins only about 2 feet tall.

Soon after I got there, they started moving. They do waddle some but they love to slide along on their belly! They ended up coming closer to me and hanging out on a little peninsula of sea ice right next to the cliff I was standing on. They didn't seem to notice me at all and were quite content lying there.

Three Adélies out sunbathing at 11:30 at night!

A wider view of where they were at

As I was watching, one of them got up, jumped into the water and disappeared. The other two just lay there, sunbathing. A minute later, the missing penguin returned! He shot straight out of the water and landed on the ice! I snapped a picture right as he was landing.

Landing on the sea ice

After watching them for a while longer, I decided to head back to the lab to get the other guys. Plus, it was very cold and windy out there on the exposed rocky peninsula of Hut Point (the current wind chill makes the temperature around 8 degrees Fahrenheit right now).

I was worried that they would disappear before we got back. However, as we were walking out to the point, one of the guys (an avid birder) looks through his binoculars out in a different direction and says that there is another one! Apparently, the penguin saw us too because he started sliding on his belly as fast as he could toward us. These penguins are extremely curious! He was probably also wondering why anyone would be crazy enough to be outside under the conditions....

A curious penguin approaches his human onlookers

Anyway, the four of us just stood there and watched him approach. He stopped for a minute once he reached the edge of the sea ice. There was a small ridge there where the sea ice transitions to snow pack.

Searching for a path to visit the humans

Then, he found a smooth hill to climb over the snow drift and he kept coming toward us! He stopped when he was probably 10 feet away!

An amazing, close-up view of the penguin. Photo courtesy of our resident photographer and birder Martijn Vandegehuchte

Soon enough, he was bored with us so he turned around and took off!

After that, we headed to the other side of Hut Point and the other three penguins were still in the same exact spot I last saw them in. They seemed to be slightly more boring after our experience with the curious one!

The 'curious' penguin ended up coming down near the crack in the sea ice once we were up on the cliff

Anyway, I am excited that I finally got to see penguins. I was hoping that I would be able to so I kept going out to Hut Point to see if any showed up. I saw their tracks on multiple visits but this was the first time I saw anything!

Since I'm sure this post has already made Uncle Neil really jealous, I'll add another bird picture. This is a skua (I believe it is a South Polar Skua). Around Mactown, they can be very clever scavengers, foraging for food in the various waste bins around town.

A skua next to the same crack I eventually saw penguins at

Anyway, excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes as it is after 2 AM now! Unfortunately, I also just found out from the flight information page on our local McMurdo Intranet that my flight was cancelled. I don't know when I'll be able to leave but it looks like I can sleep in tomorrow.

Flight Update

There was a South Korean fishing boat that caught fire less than 400 miles north of here. Three of the crew members are dead. Seven of the injured fishermen are on board a U.S. Antarctic Program research vessel heading toward McMurdo right now. They are supposed to be medevaced to Christchurch on my flight.

Here are some news articles about it:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/6247766/US-jet-to-evacuate-hurt-inferno-ship-crew
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/missing-37-rescued-korean-fishing-boat-fire-15332662#.Tw5cb0rd6qG

They moved the flight back by 6 hours to make sure that they have enough time to get the injured fishermen here. They also told us that some of us might be bumped to the next flight scheduled for early Monday morning. Hopefully I find out more information soon about what's going on.

Last Day on the Ice

Well, barring any weather delays, I should be leaving McMurdo tonight sometime between 2 and 4 AM (McMurdo Time aka New Zealand time)! If everything goes according to plan, I will get back to the U.S. on January 14th local time. I will spend tomorrow night in Christchurch then leave the next morning for the States.

It has certainly been a fun, challenging, tiring, and incredible experience to be here in Antarctica for the past month (it will be 32 days total by the time I leave. I'm excited to have my first shower in a month!). I never could have predicted that my undergraduate research would result in a trip to the bottom of the world. However, I am excited to get back to the U.S. to see my wife, her family, and my family again. I feel like we accomplished a lot but that there are still quite a few mysteries that the soil ecology team and the LTER site can discover in future Antarctic field seasons.

There's still a post or two that I want to do, so hopefully I will have time to do that soon.

Oh, and just kidding about the shower thing!

Counting 'todes

Today is our last day of counting nematodes! We are finishing up the last samples now.

I previously talked about how we sample and how we extract the nematodes, rotifers, tardigrades, and other small animals from a soil sample.

The next step is to examine the sample under a microscope. I explained the physical process of counting in my post about the lab, especially in the long caption under the picture of our microscopes. We scroll through the sample in a special sample counting dish and use a counting machine to keep track of things. We identify all of the nematodes by species, sex or stage in life cycle (male, female, or juvenile. Juvenile nematodes from the species we see don't have visible sex organs so we count all of them as juvenile), and living or dead. For tardigrades, rotifers, and everything else, we just identify them generally (tardigrade, rotifer, or "other" which usually means protozoan) and we only count the living specimens.

A female Scottnema lindsayae. You can see the indentation of the vulva pretty clearly

A juvenile Scottnema lindsayae. No reproductive structures are seen.

Main body of a Plectus murrayi juvenile. No reproductive structures are seen.

Same Plectus as above except you can clearly see the distinctive tail characteristic of a Plectus

Five nematodes, all Scottnema lindsayae. The one on the top and the second on from the left are male. The one on the bottom right is a female, and the other two (the one in the middle on the right and the one farthest left) are juveniles. For the males, you can see the spicules as an angled structure in the tip of their tail.

A male (you can't tell that it's a male from this picture) Eudorylaimus antarcticus. Adults like this guy are so huge! It is impossible to fit the whole thing in one picture and have it be in focus!

 

 My video of an Antarctic tardigrade

 

My video of a collection of Scottnema lindsayae

So that's the stuff that we normally see! We see tons of Scottnema in the dry soils. When we sample closer to the streams or lakes, the diversity increases and we start to see a variety of these other animals too (and the numbers of Scottnema either drop low or disappear). In a plentiful sample, we can see 1000 nematodes. In a normal sample, we'll see a couple hundred. A few samples have absolutely nothing! It is still amazing to me that we find so many microscopic animals in such a desolate location. When we're sampling, it looks so dry and inhospitable that I can't imagine life to exist there.

Scott Base and Miers Valley

Last night, Byron and I were invited over to Scott Base for dinner. Scott Base is the Antarctica New Zealand (aka the Kiwis) base. It's just 2 miles from McMurdo but it's a lot smaller. The maximum capacity is only around 100 people and I think they had about 60 people when we were there. Since it's so small, you have to be invited over by one of the Kiwis. Fortunately, Byron has plenty of friends so we got to go.

They have really good meals over there so it was a good reprieve. I can't remember everything we ate except I remember that they had real ice cream! That was good.

Afterward, we hung out in their bar (I had a Sprite. They have American night once a week where all the Americans can come, but it wasn't last night. I've heard it's a lot rowdier when all the Americans swarm the place) and I went on a tour of the base. Everything is connected together which is very useful in the Antarctic winters. It's definitely not as big and sprawling as Mactown.

Scott Base, Antarctica

I thought that my trip out to Lake Hoare would be my last field trip. However, due to some weather and scheduling conflicts for some of the other people who were supposed to go, I was able to go out this morning to help set up a new set of plots in Miers Valley. This valley is farther south than Taylor Valley, and even farther south than Garwood Valley (the one I took a helicopter ride to a couple of weeks ago). Miers Valley is more remote than Taylor Valley in the sense that there are no field camps or emergency shelter structures anywhere (no field camps with wireless internet and fresh homemade cookies either!). Our radios can't reach McMurdo (Taylor Valley is farther away from Mactown than Miers is, but there are radio repeaters set up throughout Taylor), so we took a satellite phone to communicate.

Miers is a pretty small valley with two glaciers, a stream, and a lake.

Sorry the picture is tilted! We were in a banking helicopter. This picture is taken looking up the valley. You can see Adams Glacier on the left, Miers Glacier on the right, and Holiday Peak sticking up like a nunatak from between them. You can see the lake and stream as well (named Miers Stream and Miers Lake, I think?)

Our job was to set up a total of 9 sites (3 at each elevation) going down the mountainside. We also needed to collect 3 samples at each of the sites. Since it's so cold in the Dry Valleys, the soil forms these interesting shapes called polygons. We needed to find polygons that were big enough to fit our plots so it took a little while to find the right location. While Martijn, Zach, and I did that, Byron set up a meteorological station. The station collects soil temperature and moisture year-round.

The technical name for polygons is thermal contraction crack polygons. They have been found on Mars and in the Arctic as well. They form in Antarctica because the soil freezes then thaws repeatedly. When we walk around in the Dry Valleys, we try to only walk in the cracks so it can make a relatively short journey take a lot longer.

After we were done sampling, we only had a few minutes left before the helicopter came to pick us up again. I took a picture of a ventifact, which is a rock that has been shaped and hollowed out by wind-blown sand. I also got a picture next to the stream running through the valley.

Overall, it was a great final day of field work in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica!

Polygons on the side of Miers Valley

A ventifact a few hundred yards from the stream in Miers Valley

Standing next to the stream with both glaciers in the background

Nematode Extraction Method

In a previous post, I described how we sample when we are in the field. Now I want to describe how we remove the nematodes from the soil sample. This extraction method is meant primarily for nematodes; however, we also extract rotifers, tardigrades, and some protozoans. I will just use "nematodes" below instead of listing all of the animals we extract though. We call this the sugar centrifugation extraction method.

The chlorophyll A samples I mentioned in the previous post can be processed later. However, we do need to extract nematodes right away or they will start dying. Ideally, we only store the soil samples in a refrigerator for a couple days.

The first step is to weigh out 50 grams of soil so that we can figure out the moisture content. We record the initial mass, then stick the samples in an oven for a couple of days and record the final weight. This soil can't be used for anything else after it has been cooked for so long.

While we have the soil bag open, we take out 100 grams for our nematode extraction.

Me weighing out 100 grams of soil for nematode extraction under a laminar flow hood (a hood designed to keep the work surface sterile while still allowing us to work under it)

The next step is to add some water to the container with our 100 grams of soil. We mix the soil up in the water then pour the resulting murky water through a series of two sieves. The first sieve catches all the big rocks but allows the nematodes to flow through it. The second sieve catches all the nematodes (as well as quite a bit of dirt that is similar in size) but allows the really fine particles to flow through into the sink.

Zach running the sieves

We recover all of the nematodes along with the trapped dirt into a tube by squirting water backwards onto the sieve. Next, we centrifuge the tubes for 5 minutes to pull all the dirt and nematodes down to the bottom of the tubes. We pour off most of the water, leaving a small amount of water with the dirt in the bottom of the tube. Now we can add a sugar solution (a very thick sugar solution of normal granulated sugar. It is almost half sugar/half water) to the tubes and stir the dirt and nematodes up. All of the nematodes float to the top of the tube in the sugar solution but the dirt falls to the bottom. We centrifuge the mixture for a minute to speed up the separation.

Martijn running the centrifuge

The last step is to pour off the sugar carrying the nematodes onto the last sieve, taking care to avoid pouring the dirt onto the sieve as well. The final sieve is very fine and catches all the nematodes while allowing the sugar and fine silt to wash away. We wash the nematodes with some water (nematodes don't do very well in sugar if they are left there for too long) then rinse them off the sieve into a final tube.

And that's it! If all went well, the nematodes are swimming around with a minimal amount of water and soil. We usually wait about 30 minutes for the nematodes to start moving around before we examine a sample. Some of the living nematodes are dried up in the soil but will begin moving when they have had enough time in water. I plan to explain the next steps (including pictures of the typical nematodes we find) in a later blog post.

We're in the lab today running this extraction method on the samples we collected 2 days ago from the Elevational Transect.

Overnight Camping at Lake Hoare

On Monday afternoon, Byron, Zach, and I flew out to Lake Hoare field camp to spend the night there. We didn't really need to spend the night in the field but we wanted to have some fun by going on a hike and eating a good meal in a change of scenery from McMurdo. Lake Hoare camp is the home base for the Dry Valleys scientists because it is a central location and there is a camp manager who stays there all summer. The other camps are more "fend-for-yourself" using the available facilities than Lake Hoare.

Camping at Lake Hoare is pretty nice. In fact, I don't know if it's really accurate to call it camping! There's power, wireless internet, a phone, hot meals cooked by the camp staff (there were 2 staff at the camp when I visited), and the tents are already set up. We had some really good steak, homemade bread, baked vegetables, and a salad for dinner, with some chocolate macadamia nut cookies for dessert. It was better than the cafeteria food! The field camp has a main building, 3 labs, bathrooms (well, outhouses), a helipad, and a few other buildings. The camp is on the north side of Lake Hoare right next to the Canada Glacier.

Three lab buildings, DLH pond, two of many tents around camp (mine is the one on the right) and Canada Glacier in the background

The buildings (from left to right): 3 labs, the main field camp, and a cluster of bathrooms, generator, and fuel cache. You can also see a mountain tent and a Scott tent, part of Lake Hoare, the Kukri Hills on the left, and the Matterhorn on the right

Main field camp building

One of the jokes is that I am supposed to pronounce the name of the lake as "Lake Hoe-are-eh" when I tell my mother about it. (For those of you who aren't my mother: It's pronounced just like the word "whore." The little pond in the middle of camp is called DLH aka Dirty Little Hoare!)

So we got there at about 4 PM then helped move some heavy stuff around. We had dinner then after cleaning up the dishes, we went on a hike up to the top of Canada Glacier. To get there, we walked south along the edge of the glacier. There is a little stream with melted glacier water running along the moraine and glacier edge. There are frequent little waterfalls coming off the glacier as well.  We passed by another seal carcass too. To get onto the glacier, we needed to walk along the edge of the glacier until we reached the marked path free from crevasses. It was actually quite easy to walk onto the glacier. It was just like climbing a small hill except we were wearing ice traction devices on the bottom of our boots called STABILicers. We took some pictures on top then headed back to go to sleep.

One of the little waterfalls coming off the glacier

Byron and I on top of Canada Glacier with the ice falls in the background

Taking a drink from fresh glacier water. It was cold but tasted great!

The next morning, we left to walk across Lake Hoare on the ice to the south side of the lake. The ice was really solid except for the moat around the edges. We were lucky to find a solid spot to walk onto the shore on the south end.

There were two experiments we were supposed to sample. The first one is just a series of 9 Bundt pans going up the mountainside. The pans are supposed to collect wind-borne sediments but they don't collect very much at all. One of the theories is that wind can disperse nematodes, tardigrades, and rotifers, but so far they have only found microbes in the sediment traps. The second experiment, called the Elevational Transect, was much more tedious to sample. There are 3 different locations with 17 different samples collected at each. The experiment is designed to monitor the effect of elevation on the soil ecosystem. It is one of the longest-lasting soil experiments in Taylor Valley, being established back in the 1993-1994 field season. The highest sampling location was quite high up the side of the valley located on a relatively flat bench. We carried those soil samples down in our backpacks then added more soil at the other 2 locations. By the end of the day, all of our gear plus soil samples easily made each of our packs 65 pounds or more. We finished about 1 1/2 hours before our scheduled helo pickup time and then they got a little behind schedule so we sat around freezing for a couple of hours.

Byron (L) and I (R) sampling the lowest of the Elevational Transect locations

One of the Bundt pans. It is designed to catch sediment in the bottom of the pan. The marbles supposedly help trap the sediment. There are much better designs on the market but this is what we have to work with...

Byron and I freezing while waiting for the helo. Matterhorn is obscured by clouds as a storm rolls down Taylor Valley

When we got back to Mactown, the communications link between McMurdo and the U.S. was down so we had no internet or phone access to the States (There are backups like true satellite phones in case of an emergency). Kristen was starting to get a little worried by the time it started working again!

How we sample

Tomorrow, we're scheduled to go out into the field to do our last sampling for the season. I figured I should explain what we do when we sample.

I took some pictures of Byron collecting a sample at the LTM plots at the south side of Lake Hoare so I'll explain it below the pictures.

The first step is to use a spoon to scrape the very top layer of dirt into an amber vial. This sample is used to measure levels of  chlorophyll A. The measurement tells us how much photosynthesis is occurring in that plot.

Next, we use a small scoop to dig out some of the soil. We try to take the top 10 centimeters of soil which ends up being about 3 scoops. This is the sample that we will end up processing to count nematodes, tardigrades, rotifers, etc. The soil biogeochemists also take a portion of the sample to run their analysis.

Byron wanted to make sure that I got a picture of the whirling action! The bags we use are called Whirl-Paks. We remove the air from the top of the bag then roll the top of the bag down until it is flush against the sample. The last step is to use the built-in twist tie to close the bag.

The finished product! These pictures were taking while sampling the LTM plots at the south side of Lake Hoare. Matterhorn is in the background.

We like to have a minimum of three people for each sampling trip. One person has a map of the plots and directs two samplers to the various plots. The plots are arranged on a grid but none of them are labeled so you need to have a map to figure out the various treatments (Labels don't hold up under the harsh conditions of the Dry Valleys. The LTM plots were actually labeled with metal tags originally but most of the tags are either missing or sandblasted so the engraved words are unrecognizable.). We prelabel all of the vials and bags so that we can get the sampling done quickly in the field.

After we finish sampling, we sometimes have treatments to apply to the plots. You might remember I explained that we water the BEE plots by adding 5.6 liters of water. There are other plots where we add liquid carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous. I wasn't involved with those plots though because a different team went to those sites.

That's it! The last step is to call the helicopter up to come pick us up and to stick all of the samples in a refrigerator set at 4 degrees Celsius.

Happy New Year!

It's 2012 in Mactown! Happy New Year everyone! We are in either the first or second time zone so we get to celebrate pretty early. McMurdo operates on New Zealand time.

We had the annual Icestock music festival today. It started at 6 PM and the bands are still playing! They had a chili cookoff for the first hour or so with several interesting options, including chili with peanut butter and chili with chocolate. I actually liked the peanut butter one! They did a countdown right at midnight then the bands got right back to playing. And yes, this is another great excuse for everyone to get drunk! My wife made me promise not to get drunk and not to kiss a girl at midnight though...

Icestock 2011-2012

Father Time leading the countdown to the new year

The playlist. All the greats are playing!

By the way, there was a skua flying over the concert during the performance by the "Flock of Skuas"!