gone south

Monday, December 7, 2009

Ice People part 6

Jim Ruppel, carp shop foreman, sitting in the Telehandler

Terry Smalls, with a Delta shuttle on the road to Pegusus Runway

Jack, a lineman from southern Ohio working at Pegusus

Skiing and other pictures

Carpenter at work

Skimobile transport

Seeing the Byrd traverse off. Rick and Ben drove a Tucker Snowcat and a snowmobile 80 miles from WAIS Divide to Byrd camp in about twelve hours

Outhouses. Four, no waiting.

Erica resting - she's from Texas, and it was her first time skiing ever. She did really well.

Erica and Jenny skiing near the skiway (runway)

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Me in the drilling trench . The purpose of the trench is so that there is room for the drilling tower. The building itself is not tall enough. The trench is approximately 5 feet wide by 60+ feet deep. Because the snow pushes in over time, we had to use electric chainsaws to carve the snow back so that the drilling tower can swing freely.

Bess preparing the ice cores for shipping. The ice cores slip inside a webbing and then go inside a plastic bag. The whole thing is then put in a metal cylinder. Four of these go into one box where snow is used as a packing material. The ice cores are shipped all the way back to the US by plane and ship. They are kept at a constant temperature the whole way.

The scientists are not studying the ice so much as the trapped air bubbles in the ice. This allows them to study the composition of the atmosphere at a given time. They have drilled roughly a mile a down this pont, and will go about two miles total. When they are done, they will have a record going back to between 100,000 to 125,000 years ago.

Bruce, head ice core handler, for lack of a better title

From within the drilling trench

Ice cores in the storage "basement" where they are kept around 22 degrees below zero farenheit

Tent City

My Tent - brand name "Artic Oven" made in Alaska

The town and cargo line with tent city to the left

Inside the Galley

Morning stretching

Thanksgiving Dinner

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Ice People part4 WAIS Divide

Marty Dukes, painter, juggler and carny

Jason, heavy equipment operator (post snowmobile ride)

Jenny Brower. Jenny teaches fifth graders in her home state of Idaho. She came to work in Antarctica because it's an easier job.

Building WAIS Divide Field Camp

Polar Chief - carpenter's warming tent

Just got back from WAIS Divide where I had a great time. It took two weeks of delays to get there, but we finally arrived. We were lucky in that day was sunny and beautiful so it made it aesy to put up our tents. The weather quickly changed by the next day to be colder and much windier. The temperatures ranged between 5 degrees farenheit to -4 degrees farenheit. There was a really good group of carpenters there and we put everything up fairly quickly. It took a little over a week to get the town set up. There was a galley mod and tent, a rec/wash room mod and tent, a coms (communication) tent, a science tent, a medical tent, the KBA tent (KBA stands for Ken Borak Air. They are out of Calgary, Canada and fly the small planes for us in Antarctica.), There were also two Jamesway tents used for sleeping. The Jamesways are circa 1951 military tents. This may be the only place in the world that still uses them. They are slowly being phased out.