Schuyler Borges
Antarctic Fieldwork
Midseason Update1/5/2019 Apologies for not continually updating this blog. I thought wifi would be better down here, but you know. It is Antarctica. Obviously, doing Antarctic fieldwork comes with its own quirks and culture; McMurdo, the US base station, being one of them. The best way to describe this small town is that it is like a small college campus of only 800 people. As you could imagine, everything gets around to everyone and even events that happen out in the field get back to town via the "rumor mill". This town is located on Ross Island, which contains a stratovolcano (Mt. Erebus), and is one of the few places in the world that has a lava lake. Interesting fact: kenyanite is a mineral produced from lava lakes and is only found here in Antarctica and in Kenya. It's all over the valleys (one of the most interesting parts of Antarctica is its rare geology). McMurdo is also located off the coast of the McMurdo Sound, which connects out to the Ross Sea. Our first week in McMurdo, we visited the "observational tube," which is a hole drilled through the sea ice that people can look through and see the entire bottom of the sea floor. We saw a lot of fish and heard some seals, but watching ice crystals at the bottom and being surrounded by the silence and calmness of the sea was the most astonishing part.
In McMurdo, we have a cafeteria that we get all our meals at (which has good food considering the fact that things like produce and fresh vegetables are hard to get -- people go nuts when there are things like salad and tomatoes down here), a gym, 3 bars, a chapel, a store where you can buy necessities and apparel, and, of course, our lab facilities (we share a lab with David Ainley's group, who are renown penguin experts). Now, there are many moving parts at McMurdo. Only handfuls of people are actually scientists doing research. There are a lot of people like the cafeteria staff, outdoor gear staff, water management staff, firefighters, helicopter (called "helo") pilots, safety implementors, environmental representatives, contractors, carpenters, and facilities management staff who are all down here supporting the scientific work of NSF Grantees. It's hard to imagine, but some of these people have been coming down here for many years, but only a few ever get to visit the places we've called home over this last month. This is one of the reasons why our work here in the Dry Valleys is so unique and special. But McMurdo is still an interesting place. There's never a dull moment. Either long held traditions are taking place, like Ice Stock, which is our New Years music festival, or simple things like "trivia night" or "open mic night" that take place once a week in the bars. One of the most interesting events was a tug-of-war between those from our base station and those from the Kiwi or New Zealander base station a few miles away from our camp. The Kiwis also do "American Night," which is one of the few nights that McMurdo people actually get to visit Scott Base (neither members are allowed to casually visit each other's base stations without invitation). Life in McMurdo is also a fun time thanks to the numerous cases of the crud and pink eye (thankfully we can avoid a lot of that being out in the field). Though McMurdo has the warm showers, beds, and ready-to-eat meals, there's no other place I'd rather be than in Taylor Valley during my time in Antarctica. There's something to be said for waking up to the beauty of being surrounded by seven glaciers and mountains, which you don't really get to experience from the comfort of McMurdo. There are two field camps within the Fryxell Basin, where we are doing research: F6 and Fryxell. We are stationed at Fryxell, which is able to support a larger number of people than F6. We have our own kitchen with a stove, refrigerator and freezer, cabinets, an oven, and a microwave. We even have a sink. Though, there isn't running water, so when we do use it, we pour our waste water down the drain and into a bucket. This water is disposed of into our larger "U/G" (called "U/G" for "urine" and "grey water") barrels located right outside the hut (term we use for the building). The "U/G" barrels have a funnel attached to it, so that's how you pour your used water into the barrel (it's also where you spit when you brush your teeth). We actually get our water straight out of the lake, so every other day two of us have to go down to the lake (which is actually not that far from camp) and collect water in these giant pots to bring back for cooking, drinking, and washing dishes in. We do filter our drinking water, but the lake water is so pristine that it's really ok to drink on its own. Again, it's Antarctica. Got none of those pollutants like we do elsewhere. And there aren't many living organisms here. I did learn that I've probably ingested many tardigrades while being down here though, which to my surprised can survive in space but not your stomach. In the hut, there's also two long tables used as work spaces and a make-shift couch and coffee table. The couch is really just wooden boards, but I've definitely had no problems sleeping on it in the past. There's also a side room, our "coms" (for communication) room, where we have all our radios and a freezer for lab samples. Next to this room there are some cubbies we use for storing our personal items and anything else like extra duct tape or p-chord. The entire hut is heated to about 70 degrees, and all of our sources of heating for the stove, oven, fridge, and furnace are propane tanks, which we have to switch out once they get empty. One thing people don't realize is that when you're doing Antarctic fieldwork at a field camp like Fryxell, you're not solely doing scientific work. You're also doing a lot of camp maintenance, which can make a long field day even longer. We also have four labs on our site: lab lab (that's literally what we call it), electronics lab, chem lab, and rad (radioactive) lab. We only use the lab lab for filtering our biological samples and the electronics lab for storing and performing spectroscopy experiments. The labs are quite small, but they are also heated by propane tanks. All of our lab equipment we had to request from Crary (the name of the lab facilities in McMurdo) and bring out into the field ourselves. The BFC (which stands for the Berg Field Center), is where we were able to rent out all of our field and camping gear like our backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, and any other camp items (we do sleep in tents here, and they've actually been pretty toasty). We were also expected to fill out a food request with a list of items we wanted for food that we had to pack, weigh, and transport out into the field through the BFC. The food in the field is... less than stellar, but way nicer than typical field food. We do eat a lot of expired foods (the oldest thing being a box of rice from 2003), but we've been able to cook shrimp, fish, chicken, turkey, and other more elaborate meals out here thanks to our lovely kitchen. Mark has been the designated cook, and I am convinced he can make meals out of nothing. Sarah and I tried to cook one night, but I think we were doing a less than stellar job because Mark was like "I got this. Don't worry." In addition to these buildings, we have three solar panels, a "gen shed," that contains our generators and basic repair equipment, and two bathroom sheds. Going to the bathroom... It's actually not bad at all here. We poop in poop buckets and pee into a can that we then pour into a funnel that feeds into our "U/G" barrels. It sounds kinda weird, but the bathrooms are like typical bathrooms except instead of water existing below the toilet seat there's either a poop bucket or a can. Not bad! All of our waste is shipped back to the states to be burned. One thing the United States Antarctic Program takes seriously is our environmental impact (thank god). Everything at camp is packed up in some way and heloed out to town to be added to a ship back to the States. So, though it may not be for some people, it's quite an efficient process. One of those things that you just learn to manage while you're out here. When you gotta go in the field, you pee in a pee bottle (it's just a designated nalgene bottle for pee). We actually weren't told what to do for number two, so we bring plastic bags and toilet paper with us just in case anyone has an emergency. To introduce the team, there's me, Mark, my advisor and PI of the project, Lee, a scientist at NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network) in CO and former LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) Stream Team member, and Sarah, current grad student at Virginia Tech and LTER Soils Team member. Two other people on our project include Jeb Barrett, Co-PI of the LTER and Sarah's advisor at Virginia Tech, and Eric Sokol, also a scientist at NEON. Only Mark, Lee, Sarah, and I have been in the field the last month doing fieldwork. Jeb is coming out soon, and Eric will help us analyze the data after the field season. Just for a brief overview, the LTER is one of the biggest Antarctic NSF-funded projects. They extend to other locations in the states, but the Antarctic LTER groups have been performing research down here in the Dry Valleys for the last 25 years or so. They're both the biggest and the most established group performing Dry Valleys Antarctic fieldwork. We're actually one of the only groups out here that isn't affiliated with the LTER. There is a lot of influence of them in our own team since a few of our members used to or currently are a part of the LTER, but our project is independent of the LTER. Though, our research could definitely influence their research in the future. Because we had to share space with two other LTER groups earlier in the season, we've definitely gotten to know a lot of folks within the different teams affiliated with the LTER. It's been fun, and there's always some social event where we all hang out and enjoy time together. To give an update on our research, things are going well. Towards the first quarter of the field season, we were starting to get a little antsy because the weather was cloudy for 8 days straight, and we had only gotten 3 days of clear skies (one of the cloudiest Decembers in the last 20 years). We can't make measurements on cloudy days because we are using a field spectrometer, which measures the light from the sun reflected off of objects. Different surfaces reflect different wavelengths of light; we can determine different rock types or rock from microbial mat ;) based off of what wavelengths of light they reflect. When there are clouds, the water vapor scatters light from the sun in all directions, ultimately preventing the spectrometer from being able to detect the light reflected off of a particular surface (it's being reflected off of many surfaces). In other words, cloudy days = bad. And only until recently have we been able to consistently go out and take measurements. That hasn't stopped us though! Within the first week, we were able to get some really confounding data, and I believe that this field season will be quite successful for us by the end. At the beginning of the season, we were able to take ATV's across Lake Fryxell, which is perennially covered by ice, to get to our field sites. However, within the last couple of weeks the ice has melted quite a bit, and it would not be a good idea to try to use the ATV's unless we were looking to go swimming in the lake. The ice at the margins of the lake has also melted and the moat surrounding the perimeter of the lake has gotten huge. This isn't a big issue for us because there is a moat boat that is attached to a tripod pulley system that we use to get from the margin to the ice. We did this for a while to get to our ATV, and recently Lee and Sarah went hiking across the lake to get to a field site near Canada Glacier. However, the ice itself is becoming real sketch to ride or walk on, and I suppose soon it will be unable to do this kind of a trek again. Most of the time, we take a helo across the lake to our field sites. When the helos aren't running due to bad weather in McMurdo or because of the holidays, we usually can hike around the lake by Commonwealth Glacier. The hikes to and from our field sites can range from 2-3 hours one way though, so we definitely have to prepare and head out early if we want to get stuff done. Our days are fairly long. 8 or 9 hours of field work on average if we are taking a helo, and much much longer if we are hiking. From December 30th - January 2nd, Lee and Sarah went back to town to process samples while Mark and I stayed back at Fryxell in case the weather cleared out. Well, the weather did end up clearing out, we got clear skies, and Mark and I had to do the fieldwork of four people with only the two of us. Those made for some really long consecutive days. But it's been quite a fun time despite all this. I think we, as a group, do not tend to take enough breaks. We are always thinking science, every second of every day. Whether it's reading papers, doing experiments, processing data, or samples, we're always working, and there never seems to be enough time in the day. Despite this intensity, it's been exciting, rewarding, and definitely entertaining. Every day I try to take in the scenery in one way or another. It makes you feel as though you are on another planet, as though you are an astronaut looking for some kind of familiarity within the alien landscape. There are no plants, no animals besides the microbes and an occasional skua. Only wind, rocks, glaciers, mountains, and ice. Every step you take is foreign, new, barren, and untouched. The rocks are like nothing I've ever seen before; it's certainly a geologist's playground. The landscapes are rigid and sharp, carved by both glacier and wind. Everything is as new to its location as you are to it but much older than you can imagine. Like a book, you can read into this place's past, but never fully understand its complexities no matter how many times you read it. Something so unique, so beautiful, and so well-preserved deserves to remain so. I often feel like I do not have the right to disrupt the soil that has been placed here by wind, water, or ice. It feels unnatural. I can only hope that these places and experiences stay pressed in me like the glaciers are to the basin. Because the opportunity to do fieldwork here is unmatched to anything I could ever experience elsewhere. And who knows if I'll ever have the opportunity to come back. Photos take forever to download on not-so-great Fryxell wifi, so more to come...
1 Comment
Daniel Villegas
1/5/2019 12:16:42 pm
I love reading these type of blogs. Awesome 👏🏽
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Leave a Reply.Schuyler BorgesAstronomy and Planetary Science PhD student at Northern Arizona University Archives
February 2019
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