Aubreya Adams
December 16, 2012. Me (Aubreya) in the ice tunnels below Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica. The tunnels are COLD! Like caves in the rest of the world, they maintain the average ambient temperature. Here, that's between -50 and -60. My eyelashes were frozen (although that happens all the time here) and my balaclava kept freezing to my face. Also, the zipper to my parka froze shut from the moisture in my breath!
This winter (the Southern Hemipshere summer) I spent a few months at the South Pole Station maintaining seismic equipment. Guy Tytgat of the Program for Array Seismic Studies of the Continental Lithosphere out of New Mexico Tech and I — occasionally joined by others — worked out of the pole station to install, service, and demobilize seismic stations within several hundred miles of the pole. I'm a postdoctoral research associate in seismology at Washington University in St. Louis.
Some of the seismic stations were originally established during an effort to determine the shape of the Gamburtsev Mountains, a range about the size of the European Alps, which is hidden below snow and ice. These stations are now being merged with Polenet, a global network of GPS and seismic stations deployed across the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
The goal of Polenet is to characterize the ice sheets and the crust and upper mantle structure beneath them, in order to better understand the behavior of ice sheets in a warming world.
A "typical" successful service run involved waking up early to consult with the pilots and remote weather forecasters to decide whether the conditions were acceptable for flying. If the weather was clear enough, we'd load our equipment onto a Twin Otter plane and fly to the location.
There, we would inspect the equipment at the surface, dig up a large box containing most of the equipment, and exchange the disks full of data for new, empty ones. After burying the equipment again, we'd hop back on the plane and fly back to the station, where we'd perform preliminary analysis of the data.
Of course, things rarely went so smoothly. Our biggest challenge this year was actually weather. The long distances we were flying meant that the weather had to be clear over a large area — sometimes we would have to land along the way to refuel. Unfortunately, the weather was good enough for flying only about once a week!
Aubreya Adams
The backside of South Pole Station. There are four of these modules sticking out from the main hallway. They contain the sleeping berths. The station is elevated; snow drifts underneath it in the winter and they dig it out in the summer. You can see some of the drift on the far side of the station.
Aubreya Adams
My dorm room at South Pole Station. I even made my bed for the picture, which is no small feat since that bed is almost shoulder level for me! I'm definitely out of breath by the time I climb up there. Of course, at this altitude, I'm pretty much out of breath if I do anything but walk on a flat surface!
Aubreya Adams
The ceremonial South Pole. The flags around it represent the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty. The true geographic south pole is about 100 yards away. Doesn't the ceremonial pole look like a movie prop?
Aubreya Adams
The geographic South Pole (marked by the pole topped with golden sphere). Somewhat less impressive than the ceremonial one, huh? It moves about 50 feet relative to the station every year (because the ice the station is on is moving). There is a big ceremony at New Year's when the pole is moved.
Aubreya Adams
Preparing for a service run in the Twin Otter.
I was really
impressed by what the pilots can do with these planes. They can land in seemingly impossible places and make turns so sharp that your blood rushes to your feet.
Sometimes landings and take-offs seem more vertical than horizontal. And, when
testing the ice looking for a landing spot, they
would fly long distances so close to the ground that the skis would
occasionally scrape a bit of snow! Very impressive!
Aubreya Adams
The bamboo poles mark the location of a buried seismic station at SWEI, a station installed by WUSTL graduate student Songqiao Shawn Wei.
Aubreya Adams
We replaced the big orange box there on Christmas day. The equipment inside the box includes batteries, the DAS (command center), baler (data storage), satellite modem, power control module, and bunches of cables. The box is prepared prior to the installation trip, so all 400 pounds of it have to be lugged to the spot.
Aubreya Adams
When power modules go bad - I wish I could've captured the lovely smell for you. ;)
Aubreya Adams
Here I'm lowering a dome over the top of a broadband seismometer. There
are many differences between seismic installations in Africa and
Antarctica, but one thing remains the same: Someone had better hold
your feet, or you will fall in the hole! (I have a picture of me doing
the same thing in Uganda, with the driver, David, holding my feet.)
Aubreya Adams
Back at base camp I explored one of the ice tunnels running under the South Pole Station. It goes from the station to a series of deep cavities from which water is drawn and into which sewage is pumped. The walls and ceiling really do bow inwards — it's not a optical effect.
Aubreya Adams
There are many "shrines" carved into the walls of the tunnels. Some are serious and others humorous. This one is legendary, and I won't even attempt to explain how it ended up here. But, yes, it is a sturgeon, and it was a gift from the Russians. The caviar, DVD, and biscuit blowfish are more recent additions.
Aubreya Adams
I love the presentation! Apparently even whiskey will freeze at -60.
Aubreya Adams
One of our more exciting runs was to the Pecora Escarpment, the southernmost exposed rock of the Pensacola Mountains, a large group of mountain range. This shot, from the air, shows a cave-like structure carved by the wind in the ice! For this trip we were joined by a mountaineer, Mike Roberts, who kindly kept us from falling off a cliff or into a crevasse.
Aubreya Adams
Pecora Escarpment. The seismic station is in the foreground and the GPS station in the background, right on the edge of a cliff. Mike Roberts and Thomas Nylen from UNAVCO, a non-profit consortium that facilitates geoscience research and education, were strapped in with harnesses when they were working on the station, but the pilots weren't, and kept getting very close to the edge for pictures. We were really hoping they didn't fall - who would fly us back???
Aubreya Adams
As Christmas approaches enterprising citizens at the South Pole Station erect a trash tree.
Aubreya Adams
There's been an addition to the trash tree. I think the sombrero was a nice touch.
Aubreya Adams
New Year's Day: Pole Moving Ceremony. Every year, the geographical pole is moved to account for the movement of the ice. It is also given a new "topper" or cap made by the folks who wintered over the previous year. It's a pretty big deal, so it was neat to participate in the ceremony.
Aubreya Adams
This year, the cap includes pins representing the planets and the moon in their relative positions today 1/1/2013. Fun fact: this year's cap is the first ever to have a proper orientation as well as location.
Aubreya Adams
Signatures from the over-winterers on the bottom. Also, there is a pin representing Pluto, for those who don't quite want to give it up as a planet.
Aubreya Adams
A group of people built a tikki-hut/ice-bar in their
spare time, made the decorations, and bought the food and alcohol on
their own so the rest of us could have an awesome and unique New Year's
party.
Aubreya Adams
Hanging out at the ice-bar.
Aubreya Adams
By January 6, I was already on my way home. This is McMurdo Station — the departure point for planes flying north — as seen from the hut built by polar explorer Robert Scott in 1902 during the Discovery Expedition.