Following a tradition started with the photographers who recorded the early Antarctic explorers,photographer Joan Myers was in Antarctica this season as a guest of the National ScienceFoundation. A selection of her photographs starts on page 9, and can be seen atwww.polar.org/antsun in full color.

Waiting for a ride

January 19, 2003Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

www.polar.org/antsun

Two recoveringfrom helo crash

Page 3

“He has spent his entire timetrying to convince people thatTexas is bigger than Antarctica.”

Doing Antarctica’sdirty work for 50 years

Page 7

Quote of the Week

- NSF official referring to a congressmanvisiting from the Lone Star state

Photo by Joan Myers/Special to The Antarctic Sun

INSIDE

A first forsecondicebreakerArctic ship Healy deployed toMcMurdo to help clear path

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

As the icebreaker Polar Sea chips awayat the sea ice in front of McMurdo Station, asecond icebreaker is on its way to helpescort supply vessels through the channelcut in the unusually thick and extensive ice.

The backup breaker will be particularlyimportant since the U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker Polar Sea broke one of its three pro-pellers Thursday, said Coast Guard spokes-woman Lieutenant Commander AprilBrown. A 5-ton, stainless steel blade brokeoff the hub and dropped to the seafloorabout 5 miles from McMurdo. The damagecan’t be fixed before the Polar Sea returnsto Seattle and was probably the cumulativeeffect of grinding through difficult ice,Brown said.

The channel was officially 48 nauticalmiles (55 standard miles; 88 km) long whenthe Polar Sea finished the first cut throughon Jan. 9. A few miles of sea ice have blownaway since then, leaving a channel through34-nautical miles (39 standard miles; 63km) of tough fast ice, as sea ice is called aslong as it remains solid and attached to land,plus about 200 miles of very dense pack ice.The distance to the edge of the fast ice canvary greatly from year to year, but in the last20 years the ice edge normally ranged 10 to20 miles (16-32 km.), said Al Sutherland,the ocean projects manager in NSF’s Officeof Polar Programs.

By Kristan Hutchisonand Mark SabbatiniSun staff

Some call it the “ignorosphere”because it’s a portion of the Earth’s upperatmosphere that is seldom studied. But it’stough to ignore a new antenna near theSouth Pole providing data about the rari-fied air – it’s more than four miles long.

Umran Inan is paying attention to thissection of atmosphere, hoping transmis-sions from the massive antenna will allowbetter detection of problems such as satel-

lite-damaging disturbances caused bysolar activity. More formally called themesosphere and lower ionosphere, thissection of the atmosphere is commonlyignored because it lies in a hard to observearea between 30 and 60 miles (50-100km)in altitude.

“It’s too high for airplanes, too high foreven balloons, but too low for satellites,”said Inan, an engineering professor who isthe head of the Very Low FrequencyGroup of the Space, Telecommunications

Huge antenna looks at ‘ignored’ air

See Healy on page 14See VLF on page 16

The Antarctic Sun is funded by the NationalScience Foundation as part of the United

States Antarctic Program. Its pri-mary audience is U.S. AntarcticProgram participants, their fami-lies, and their friends. NSFreviews and approves material

before publication, but opinions and conclu-sions expressed in the Sun are not necessari-ly those of the Foundation.

Use: Reproduction and distribution areencouraged with acknowledgment of sourceand author.

Senior Editor: Kristan HutchisonEditors: Melanie ConnerMark Sabbatini

Copy Editor: Liz Connell, Wendy KoberPublisher: Valerie Carroll,

Communications manager, RPSCContributions are welcome. Contact the

Sun at AntSun@usap.gov. In McMurdo, visitour office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: www.polar.org/antsun

2 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

Antarctica on the WebNumber of Google searchengine hits for “Antarctica” asof Jan. 16: 2,090,000First site: Australian AntarcticDivision (www.antdiv.gov.au)Hits for “Antarctica” and “sci-ence”: 296,000Hits for “Antarctica” and“aliens”: 13,900Hits for “Antarctica” and either“penguins” or “skuas,” respec-tively: 44,200 and 2,470News stories about Antarctica:537Top search inquiries at TheAntarctic Sun’s Web site duringthe past week (in descendingorder): penguins, arctic cli-mate, gould, itase to byrd,lake vostok anomaly, library,petrified wood, 2003 calen-dar

Cold, hard facts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

It says here the U.S. govern-ment is sending an icebreaker tocome and save us from oblivion,extinction and in-breeding.

I wonder how we’ve been ableto manage without anyone’shelp for millions of years?

I don’t know, but I seeit as a free trip to asummer vacation.

We’re almost at thepenguin colony, captain.

...Now then, arethere any ques-tions before youstart boarding?

Does the shipcarry booze or isthis going to be aB.Y.O.B. cruise?

Across1. This bowling job on the Ice is almost extinct4. Boring in classrooms, maybe, but a huge hit here7. Incredibly, Pole people run all the way around this8. Win this and the prize may be a boondoggle11. The Thanksgiving road race at McMurdo13. The occasional fast-food alternative at McMurdo15. New Year’s music festival at McMurdo17. A place to borrow everything from skis to CDs18. Played against the Kiwis on a field of ice19. This South Pole dinner is a big deal for wintering staff

Down2. No driving after parties, but these will get you home4. So dark you have to hear the pins drop5. Commonly used to describe off-station trips6. Women’s McMurdo performance show near holidays9. Parties celebrated near, but not exactly on, Jan. 110. A “real house” for hosting McMurdo gatherings11. An unofficial extreme temperature club at the Pole12. This club offers the rare opportunity to camp out14. Alternative art show at McMurdo16. Scott Base hosts these brain games

Solution on page 6

Katabatic Krosswords: Recreation time on the Ice

2

3 4

56 7 7

10

6 9

10

7

9

13

12

13

15 16

1615

17

19

Squares too small? No pencil to erase your mistakes? Try our interactive online puzzle at www.polar.org/antsun

5

15

18

5

9

14

5

5

14

20

1

5

7

5

8

11

11

18

32211

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 3

LaFratta named newdeputy section head

This week Susanne LaFratta assumed the duties of the deputy sectionhead of Polar Research Support in the Office of Polar Programs. As thedeputy section head she will assist section head Erick Chiang in provid-ing the overall leadership, coordination and management necessary tooversee the financial, logistical, operational and science support for theU.S. Antarctic Program. She follows Dwight Fisher, who recently retiredafter 10 years in this position and over 20 years of dedicated support tothe program.

LaFratta's education brings financial, legal and project managementexpertise to the program. LaFratta managed laboratories at HarvardMedical School for 13 years. After earning her law degree at night andpracticing law for about a year, LaFratta realized she didn’t enjoy thecourtroom work as much as the investigations that precede it, so sheapplied for a job in the National Science Foundation’s Office of theInspector General. As an audit advisor for the Inspector General’s office,she did oversight of polar programs and visited Antarctica three timesfrom 1997 to 2000.

She then joined the NSF’s Office of Budget, Finance and AwardManagement, helping them set up a facility management office. In thatposition she was involved with all of the NSF’s facility projects, includ-ing the South Pole Station Modernization and IceCube projects.

“I’m really looking forward to being involved again. The program isimpressive and it’s a world that few people get to see,” LaFratta said.“I’m looking forward to the challenges of the job and making a contri-bution to the program.”

The following press release was supplied bythe National Science Foundation:

Helicopter crashInjured pilot, passenger flown toNew Zealand for treatment

A helicopter flying in support of the NationalScience Foundation's Antarctic research programhas crashed near McMurdo Station, NSF's scienceand logistics hub on the continent.

The helicopter's pilot and a passenger, the onlypeople aboard the aircraft, were injured in the inci-dent, which happened at approximately 4:00 p.m.local time on Jan. 17. They were evacuated to NewZealand aboard a New York Air National Guard LC-130 cargo aircraft for medical treatment. Medicalpersonnel accompanied the injured on that flight.

The aircraft arrived in New Zealand at approxi-mately 6 a.m. local time Jan. 18, and the patientswere transferred to a local hospital in Christchurch,NZ.

The names of the injured are not being released,pending notification of family.

The helicopter was shuttling cargo to science sta-tions in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, an ice-free areaof the continent, roughly 96 kilometers (60 miles)from the station across the ice-covered McMurdoSound.

Petroleum Helicopters Inc., of Lafayette, La.,operates NSF's helicopter fleet in Antarctica. Theincident involved a seven-passenger Bell 212 heli-copter.

An investigation into the cause of the crash hasbegun.

PHI flies approximately 1,400 flight hours eachseason in support of U.S. Antarctic research. This isthe first aircraft accident with serious injury for theU.S. Antarctic Program since PHI assumed respon-sibility for helicopter flight operations from the U.S.Navy in 1996.

If you could be anAntarctic animal whatwould you be andwhy?

“Put me down for aparty animal.”Dave Anderson

South Pole heavy shopforeman from

Meridian, Idaho

“I’d be a Weddellseal because theyget to do the polarplunge everyday.”

Paul Kolachor,McMurdo Station

dining attendant fromTelluride, Colo.

"A Skua. Tough. Edgy.They could go any-

where in the world tomake a living but theypick harsh places likeAntarctica. They are

working class heroes." Eric Pohlman

Palmer waste managementspecialist from Minneapolis

If you haven’t been to our Web page, think again

Out there all year long at www.polar.org/antsun

Answers to questionsfrom readers

2003 Artists’ calendarMovies from around

the continent

Links to projects and people covered

ANDMORE!

Think you’ve seen it all?

By Amanda Leigh Haag

Incandescent lights of austral spring flick-er as he gazes at her spiny silhouette;waves of mood music roll in on sea-saltcurrents; a wisp of biogenic fragrance

drifts by; time stands still for a dark eternity,until finally the urchins shed their gametes instreaming yellow and white banners andembrace spring with wild abandon.

Such is the reproductive life of a seaurchin from the Southern Ocean, at least aspersonified by a member of the Manahanlab. We here in the Manahan lab (a.k.a“Team Larvae”) witness this echinodermcourtship regularly in the phase 3 aquariumof Crary lab. In the absence of candlelightor Sinatra, we coerce McMurdo Sound’sdominant species of sea urchins to delivertheir gametes on cue.

The cue, in this case, involves the injec-tion of a salt that alters the chemical gra-dient of the sea urchins’ cells, resulting ina muscle contraction. An almost immedi-ate release of mature gametes into anawaiting beaker of freezing-cold seawaterensues. Under a microscope slide, onepeers down on a brilliant man/woman par-ody: billions of tiny sperm writhing madlywith blind ambition, versus the still-life oflarge, elegantly amber-hued eggs patientlyawaiting their destinies.

In the polar ocean, the onset of the repro-ductive season for most marine inverte-brates coincides with austral spring. Thelocal idiom of “it’s a harsh continent” takeson a new meaning to eggs drifting throughthe polar waters: the Southern Ocean hasbeen devoid of sunlight for six long months,and everything is hungry. It will be monthsbefore the sunlight pours forth enough ener-gy to ignite the algal bloom, the primaryproductivity of the ocean. The seawater is atthe lowest temperature it can reach withoutfreezing: –1.8C. It is a survival-of-the-fittestworld to the nth degree.

If an egg has a lucky day, it encountersa suitable mate - a lone, viable sperm celllikewise drifting aimlessly through the tur-bulent seas. Depending upon variablessuch as gamete concentration and tidalcurrents, this successful encounter in thevast ocean might literally be a chance in amillion. Think of it as the probability of

independently bumping into two old highschool classmates in a desolate place.

If the egg and sperm form a viablematch, they fuse instantaneously and theegg becomes vacuum-sealed against othersuitors (sperm cells that just won’t giveup) by the instant appearance of a fertil-ization envelope, or “halo.” At this point anew life commences or, in the controlledlaboratory setting of our glass beakers,hundreds of thousands of lives commence.

It is at this moment that the laboratoryand the ocean diverge dramatically.Fertilized eggs that we place in a gigantic200-liter culture vessel to grow up, havean “ivory tower” life: They have their pris-tine vessels stirred gently by circulating,Willy Wonka-sized paddles, their seawateris replaced every three days by grumblinggraduate students, and they live unevent-ful juvenile lives, fed to their hearts’ con-tent. According to Allison Green, a fifth-year PhD student, “There’s nothing likechanging the diapers of a million babies tomake you think twice about having kids!”

In contrast, eggs fertilized in the brutalconditions of the polar seas grow up likesavages, if they grow up at all. Just as theblueprint for life is being laid out duringthe first trimester of a human pregnancy,the embryonic stage of a developing seaurchin is the most critical for its eventualsuccess in becoming an adult. Embryos atsea face the impending doom of becomingsomeone’s planktonic snack or being bat-tered by the currents into oblivion.

In the real oceanic world, the amount ofembryos that grow up to replenish adultpopulations is much less than 1 percent. Infact, it’s not far from one in a million.These statistics provide us with amplerespect for the masses of eggs deposited inour beakers – the females are evolutionar-ily programmed to produce enough eggsto ensure that at least one will live.

The importance of these microscopiccritters and their ability to flourish in theicy Antarctic waters is what brings us allthe way from the University of SouthernCalifornia. In the past few years, theManahan lab has made some exciting dis-coveries about the embryos and larvae ofone species of local sea urchin,Sterechinus neumayeri. Published in thejournal Science last summer, our researchshows a physiological process ubiquitousto all life forms (protein metabolism) is 25times more efficient in these embryos thanany other organism ever reported. Proteinsare important because they are the work-ing machinery of all biological processes.That these growing babies are able tomanufacture proteins at such a low energycost in the freezing waters is astounding.

Our mission this season is to investi-gate this metabolic efficiency at the cellu-lar and sub-cellular levels in order tounderstand the nuts and bolts behind it. It’spossible that this high-performance meta-bolic engine is a unique adaptation to lifein the extreme cold. Therefore, we areusing a three-pronged approach to “lookunder the hood,” as our principal investi-gator Dr. Donal Manahan likes to put it.

Our first objective is to determinewhether this heightened efficiency is foundin other closely related animals, such as thelocal sea stars. David Ginsburg, a PhD stu-dent, dives to collect the animals and isdoing comparative metabolism studies invarious species. A second approach is tolook at how the whole organism fares, suchas by measuring the oxygen consumptionand feeding rates of the sea urchins.Allison Green runs this “overall engineperformance” unit, which will ultimatelytell us whether the higher efficiency pro-tein metabolism translates into more effi-cient growth overall. Our final objective isto disassemble the process of proteinmetabolism by looking at the machineryinvolved in manufacturing proteins. Dr.Douglas Pace, a post-doctoral associate,and I are studying these cellular and sub-cellular aspects to determine how thismetabolic efficiency is fine-tuned.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing toremember is that the “harsh continent”only seems that way to us. These youngones are right at home here, ingeniouslyadapted to their surroundings - we are thenaive onlookers, trying to grasp what theyhave to teach us.

Amanda Leigh Haag is a research tech-nician in the Manahan lab at theUniversity of Southern California.

4 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

speaking

of science...You’re one in a million, baby

Photo by Doug Pace/Manahan LabA pluteus larva is about 3 microns, or .3mm large.

Penhale a part of PalmerBy Tom CohenourPalmer correspondent

To say that Polly Penhale has had a bigimpact on Palmer Station would beputting it mildly. For over 17 years she'shelped shape the way science is conduct-ed there.

Penhale became a representative of theNational Science Foundation(NSF) when she joined theOffice of Polar Programs in1986 as the program manag-er in biology and medicine; aposition she's held ever since.

After growing up in St.Louis, Mo., Penhale attendedEarlham College in Indianato complete her undergradu-ate studies. From there shewent on to North CarolinaState in Raleigh where sheearned her masters and PhDin marine ecology. She alsocompleted postdoctoral stud-ies at Michigan State and theUniversity of Miami.

Remote regions beckoned her early on.She spent two summers high above theArctic Circle at Point Barrow, Alaska (72degrees north latitude), working on hermasters. Then she moved to the temperateand tropical zones for her PhD.

As a program manager with the NSF,the breadth of her program overviewincludes research based at Palmer,McMurdo Station, on two research vesselsand, to a very limited extent, South PoleStation. She's responsible for recommend-ing support or declination of grant propos-als after obtaining peer reviews, for long-range science research planning, and forworking as a member of the U.S. delega-tion to the Convention for theConservation of Antarctic Marine LivingOrganisms (CCAMLR).

"The biology and medicine program isone of the largest of the five Antarctic sci-ence programs in terms of the number ofproposals we receive," Penhale said. "The

program is very competitive, with only thevery best projects being supported."

Even though Penhale lives and worksin the Washington, D.C., area, she stillfinds time to deploy every year. This sea-son she's at Palmer for a very brief visit ofonly three weeks.

Her longest stretch on the ice of threemonths occurred several years ago atPalmer when the research vessel PolarDuke was sent to the Ross Sea on theopposite side of the continent.

"I've probably spent more time atPalmer than all other [science]program managers combined,"exclaimed Penhale.

One of Penhale's trips toPalmer was very unexpected. Inlate January of 1989 Penhalesuddenly received a phone callinforming her that the 435-foot(134-meter) Argentine supplyand research vessel named theBahia Paraiso with 316 peopleaboard had run aground on therocks near Delia Island only oneand a half miles from station.

As it made its way out ofArthur Harbor at Palmer headingto Esperanza, an Argentine sta-

tion on the peninsula, the Bahia struck ajagged rock ripping a 30-foot (9-meter)gash in its hull. Estimates of the amount offuel that was spilled into the environmentfrom the shipwreck range from 160,000gallons to 350,000 gallons.

Penhale was called upon to form anddeploy a quick-response research teamconsisting of an array of scientists to con-duct an initial assessment of the Bahiasite. To hasten the team’s arrival atPalmer, she flew on a U.S. Air Force planefrom the States to King George Island onthe peninsula and then went the rest of theway by ship. Once on-site, Penhale coor-dinated the response team to collect andstore organisms for future evaluation.

Often noted as the strongest advocatefor Palmer at the NSF, Penhale was instru-mental in establishing the Long TermEcological Research (LTER) program inAntarctica. Prior to 1990, the LTER didnot exist in the Antarctic. But after years

of hard work and determination byPenhale, in 1990 Palmer Station becamethe first-ever LTER site outside the UnitedStates. The Dry Valleys near McMurdoStation became the second.

The Convention for the Conservationof Antarctic Marine Living Resources(CCAMLR) came into force in 1982 with23 nation members. It's primarily anecosystem treaty that protects krill andfish in Antarctic waters. As one of the del-egates representing the United States, Dr.Penhale travels to Hobart, Tasmania, forannual meetings.

When asked to summarize her work,Polly says, " I see myself as a facilitatorfor others to do research and help them getgrants." And she does it well. Beingproactive in the science community is oneof her priorities. She conducts workshopsand meetings to brainstorm innovativeways to conduct science in Antarctica.

One of Polly's goals is to get science tothe general public. Teachers ExperiencingAntarctica (TEA) helps achieve that goal.Teachers at Palmer typically have a Website where they post assignments for theirstudents back in the States. Questionspour in from the students via e-mail and inthat method immerse them in facts aboutAntarctica and raise their awareness ofAntarctic geography, biology, and history.One teacher at Palmer asked the construc-tion trades people to come up with real lifesituations where they use math to solvedaily problems. It was a huge success.

And Polly's work with Palmer has alsobeen a huge success. Her 17 years of ser-vice has had a big impact on PalmerStation, how science is conducted, and theincreased awareness of the biodiversity ofthe Antarctic continent.

Planning summer’s end By Anne C. LewisPole correspondent

The end of the summer is quicklyapproaching here at the South PoleStation. The season’s last flight is sched-uled for Feb. 15. Temperatures are slowly

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 5

around the continentPALMER

McMurdo StationHigh: 37F/3C Low: 20F/-7CWind: 24 mph/39 kphWindchill: -11F/-24C

Palmer StationHigh: 46F/8C Low: 31F/-0.4CWind: 59 mph/96 kphRain: .22 inches/5.5mmSnow: Trace

South Pole StationHigh: -10F/-23C Low:-25F/-32CWind: 18mph/29kph

the week in weather

Photo courtesy of Tom CohnourPolly Penhale visitsPalmer Station.

SOUTH POLE

dropping and anticipation of redeploymenthas the station abuzz. As work continuessummer crew members are also busyfinalizing their leisure travel plans.Watching the new station being built andseeing its evolution over the season makesone appreciate the hard work everyone hascontributed. Science projects will soonstart winding down, with a few groupshaving already departed. Despite the factthat the end of the season is in sight, thereis still a lot of work to be completed.

This week we hosted two groups of vis-itors, including a congressional delega-tion. They all set foot at 90 degrees southand enjoyed a day at Pole.

We are keeping our eyes on the horizonfor incoming visitors...looking for littledots moving this way across the snow.Visitors this week include a self-guidedski expedition arriving Jan. 15.

The Antarctic Search for Meteorites(ANSMET) field team stopped in at Poleafter closing down their summer fieldcamp. John Schutt, meteorite hunter andgatherer, Dean Eppler, space suit crash testdummy (seriously!), Cady Coleman,NASA astronaut (yes, she has been inspace!), and Dianne DiMassa, masterengineer and robotics genius, shared theirsummer experiences with us. They also setup a meteorite display outside the Dome.

The cargo department entertained thestation last Sunday with its annual cargocarnival. Tug-o-war contests, banana sled-ding contests, arm wrestling and more!Cribbage is a favorite pastime down hereand this week the serious players will par-ticipate in a cribbage tournament in hopesof winning some big bucks. Jon Brack’sslide show “Around the World in 7Months - Travels between AntarcticSeasons” will gear everyone up for sum-mer travels. Last weekend out in the sum-mer camp lounge Polies threw a beachparty. Looks like redeployment-itis is set-ting in down here.

Icebreaking operationsreach McMurdo StationBy LTjg Lance W. TinstmanPolar Sea Public Affairs Officer

On Dec. 29 the U.S. Coast Guard ice-breaker Polar Sea began an 11-day, 52-nautical mile channel break-in toMcMurdo Station. The ship encounteredice up to 13 feet thick in the ice channel.This single-ship operation was the longestchannel break-in since 1963 when the U.S.Coast Guard deployed three icebreakers –CGC Glacier, CGC Eastwind and CGC

Staten Island – to complete the then 67-mile task. However, the 1963 break-in dis-tance was recorded in November. Thisyear’s channel was of historic proportionsand the longest channel ever recorded thislate in the austral summer. Polar Sea fol-lowed last year’s channel, the path of leastresistance, as much as possible.

Polar Sea arrived at the ice pier onThursday, Jan. 9. After a delay caused bya young seal that had lost its way, the seaice next to the pier was carved away andthe ship was moored. Polar Sea took on619,325 gallons of JP-5 Diesel fuel overthe weekend, as the crew enjoyed somewell-deserved liberty in McMurdo.

On Sunday, Jan. 12, it was back to workfor the ship and crew, as Polar Sea backedaway from the pier at 1 pm. Channelgrooming and widening will continue forthe next few weeks and will include thecreation of turning basins off Hut Point,and at eight- and 15-mile intervals outtowards the ice edge. These will providethe ship places to turn around and contin-ually transit the full 15 miles, widening thechannel to approximately 200 yards andbreaking ice chunks. Southerly winds areanticipated, which will greatly help clear-ing the channel, as the wind tends to blowout the fast ice, shortening the total dis-tance of the channel.

Palmer fights icebergs,performs seismic work By Chris KearyNBP correspondent

Doing marine seismic work inAntarctic waters is always a challenge.This is mostly because of the ice. Either itkeeps you from reaching your destinationor it puts your equipment at risk. Thisweek it did both for the Nathaniel B.Palmer.

We began the week sailing farthersouth along the Ross Ice Shelf, but ourprogress was hampered by – you guessedit – ice. Too much ice in the area where B-15 broke away from the shelf preventedresearchers on our cruise from doing thecontinuous line of seismic surveying

they’d hoped to do. Instead, we have goneto an area north of where C-19 calved offand will continue to work there until con-ditions improve and allow us to return tothe first study area.

On this cruise we are using several dif-ferent seismic guns, two seismic streamersand a magnetometer, all of which trailbehind us like so many pieces of expen-sive spaghetti. The guns are relativelyclose to the boat, so they are protectedfrom most of the ice by the ship’s wake.The streamers and the magnetometer how-ever, extend up to 1,200 meters, so there isalways the fear that they will catch on aberg and get damaged or, worse, snap offand sink to the bottom, as happened to oneof the magnetometers on the previouscruise.

The biggest worry at this point is dam-aging the new multi-channel streamer. Thestreamer is really just a long, smooth, rub-ber tube filled with microphones. Thephones detect and record the sound wavesemitted by the guns when they bounce offthe ocean floor. Since the streamer issmooth and cylindrical there is not a lot ofrisk of it snagging on a piece of ice, but inorder to keep it at the correct depth whenit is in the water, it has been equipped withseveral devices called “birds.” The birds,which look like large, winged bullets, areattached to the underside of the streamer at300 meter intervals. The bird wings arecontrolled remotely from inside the ship,and are told when and how deep to dive.The wings also stick out quite a bit and areprobably the biggest ice risk at this pointin the cruise. So far we’ve been lucky withthe equipment. With two and a half weeksleft in the cruise, we’re hoping to get justas lucky when it comes to getting back toour original study site.

6 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

SHIPS

Photo courtesy of Anne C. LewisSouth Pole employees play ping-pong at thecargo carnival.

Pole From page 5

Answer to p. 2 crossw

ord

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 7

By Mark SabbatiniSun staff

For 50 years MaryAnn and herfamily have done Antarctica’sdirtiest work.

the sea ice, abandoned in remotecamps for the winter and seen new-comers with less ability take overtheir jobs – except for the hard ones.Even now, the old codgers are stillthe toughest hombres on the block.

They may be only machines, butfor many in the U.S. AntarcticProgram a set of antique bulldozers –known by names such as Pam,Colleen and Big John – are like fam-ily. But their retirement is withinsight and, as MaryAnn gets ready tocelebrate her 50th birthday Sunday,the thought of losing them is crush-ing for many.

“I’d rather see an old D-8 herethan Scott’s Hut,” said RussellMagsig, a mechanic who has beenworking in Antarctica for 15 of thepast 19 years. “I could easily push(the hut) into the ocean and park itthere.”

The D-8 refers to a bulldozer notproduced since 1963, known as theCaterpillar SD-8 LGP. Caterpillarcontinues producing updated D-8models (plus D-6’s, D-7’s and oth-ers), but none have quite the sameheavy-duty features users outsideAntarctica simply don’t need.

“They will pull a heavier, biggerload than anything else that we’vegot, across more difficult conditionswithout sinking in and without slip-ping,” said Larry Cook, operations manager at McMurdo Station.

Several decades of hard work and harsh experiences havetaken their toll on the metal monsters, even with careful mainte-nance. Repairs are also getting harder, since many replacementparts are no longer made.

“The bottom line is these things aren’t going to be around verylong,” Cook said. “We’ve reached a point where we can keepthem going, but it takes a lot of effort.”

Hence the well-deserved 50th birthday party, even if two ofthe three guests of honor will be a bit shy of thehalf-century mark. Colleen and Pam will joinMaryAnn in front of the Chalet administrativeheadquarters at McMurdo at 10 a.m. today for aparty honoring the machines for their service.

Dave Bresnahan, the station’s NationalScience Foundation representative, will drivePam to the event, bringing a cake and someother party nourishment with him. He’s drivenother bulldozers during his many years in theU.S. Antarctic Program, but this will be his first

time behind the levers of an old-fashioned D-8.“Those machines represent so much history, not only of the

program but the people in the program,” he said. “I consider it areal honor to do that.”

An exhibit detailing the history of the bulldozers was dis-played when MaryAnn and Colleen were parked in front of theChalet last Wednesday. Cook said Mark Eisenger, a McMurdocrane operator, will perform a song titled “MaryAnn” he wroteabout the machine. For the most part, the ceremony will be low-key.

“Part of the ceremony will include startingthem up so those who don’t attend can also takepart in the celebration,” Cook said.

Over the years those loved ones have beenthrough a lot of abuse. Part of the affection ofthose who drive and work on the tractors has beentheir ability to withstand it.

Big John, a class of ’59 heavyweight, foundhimself partially submerged after falling through

Heavy duty champ turns 50

Above, a McMurdo Station work-er, center, inspects two older D-8Caterpillar bulldozers in front ofthe Chalet administration build-ing Jan. 16 as mechanic RussellMagsig parks the machine nick-named “Colleen.” To the left is

“MaryAnn,” the oldest of thethree remaining machines. The

third machine, “Pam,” will jointhe pair today to celebrate

MaryAnn’s 50th birthday. Atright, Dave Tuepker and Beth

Henry set up a display detailingthe history of the tractors, which

still outperform newer bulldozersat tasks such as plowing snow

and hauling heavy loads. Photos by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic Sun

“I’d rather see an oldD-8 here thanScott’s Hut.”

- Russell Magsig,McMurdo mechanic

See D-8 on page 8

They’ve been lost beneath

8 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

a crack at McMurdo’s Hut Point during August of 1990, Cooksaid.

“It went in shallow enough water that it only went halfwayin,” he said.

Cook said they determined it was an eyesore and should beput out of sight.

“They decided to lower it by blasting the sea ice around it. Inthe blasting operation they pretty much blew up the machine,too.”

All was not lost, however. Crews retrieved the machine andfitted the cabin on Colleen, a class of ’59 tractor still atMcMurdo, albeit in the repair shop.

MaryAnn, the oldest of the current fleet, was buried in snowafter making a traverse to theSouth Pole. It was dug out andreturned to work at McMurdo,although at the moment it isalso undergoing repairs.

Pam is still used daily toclear snow and maintain thesix-mile-long Williams Fieldroad, service the ice runway,transport 5,000-gallon tanks offuel to aircraft facilities andtransport mobile buildings overthe long road. Magsig said Pamhas put in about 500 hours ofwork so far this year, less thanthe 1,000 she used to in herprime, but it’s heavy-duty workother tractors can’t manage.

“I know they’re putting a lotmore than that on theChallengers, but they’re justflying up and down the run-ways,” he said, referring to anewer model of tractor being used.

The Caterpillar SD-8LGP – which stands for Stretch D-8 LowGround Pressure – was built specifically for polar programs byCaterpillar, based in Peoria, Ill., during the 1950s.

“Most of the machines were purchased by the U.S. Navy andU.S. Army in the 1950s to 1960s era,” wrote Fred Kaiser,Caterpillar’s sales application engineer. “They were sent toAntarctica and Greenland to do the heavy towing work.”

They were designed to carry heavy loads across snow, featur-ing a special cold-starting ability and a 54-inch wide track insteadof the 36-inch track found on modern equipment. They also hada drawbar pull capacity on snow of 30,000 pounds, compared toabout 24,000 for the D-7 model.

“The design was optimized by increasing the flotation of themachine by installing a much wider track than a standard D8, butretaining the weight so high drawbar pull could be exerted evenin soft underfoot conditions as snow,” Kaiser wrote.

All the extra heft meant some trade-offs, which is why thenewer machines don’t try to imitate them.

“Everybody would rather go 20 mph hauling nothing or haul-

ing a little than 4 mph per hour hauling tons,” Magsig said.Caterpillar stopped producing the machines because military

orders for them stopped, Kaiser wrote.The design life of Caterpillar equipment is 10,000 to 15,000

hours without a major overhaul, he noted. He said overhauls typ-ically extend the useful life of machines and “I think it would besafe to say the D8 LGP machines at McMurdo have exceededtheir design life many times over.”

Part of the reason the machines have lasted so long inAntarctica is driving on snow and ice put much less strain on thebulldozer’s drivetrain than soil and rock, which the drivetrainsare designed for, Kaiser added.

Beyond the numbers are the names – and the history theyblazed.

A train of the tractors transported construction cargo fromLittle America V in Kainan Bay to Byrd Station during the 1956-

57 summer for the InternationalGeophysical Year. The D-8 wasalso used during the 1960-61 sum-mer to pull the first U.S. surfacetraverse to reach the South Pole.

There are also tragic parts ofAntarctic history associated withthe D-8 models. Williams Field,the skiway for planes coming intoMcMurdo during the latter part ofthe austral summer, was named forRichard T. Williams, a Navy trac-tor driver who drowned in 1956when the D-8 he was driving brokethrough the sea ice and sank tooquickly for him to escape. Anothertractor driver, Max Kiel, fell victimto a huge crevasse during the sameperiod while driving 250 milessoutheast of Little America.

Magsig said only one or two ofthe tractors were running when hefirst arrived in Antarctica nearly 20

years ago. He said at the time he never would have expected themachines to last this long, but within a few years it becameapparent they were built to last and ideally suited for a “sledge-hammer mechanic” such as himself.

“We were just as simple as one another,” he said.But repairs aren’t as simple anymore. Mechanics are forced to

make their own replacement parts, borrow them from other trac-tors or find other ways to piece together the tractors when theymalfunction. That takes up an increasing amount of time andmoney, making them less efficient to keep here, said BobbyWerner, supervisor of the vehicle maintenance facility atMcMurdo.

It’s possible the machines could be shipped off the Ice as earlyas next season, Werner said. He said he has mixed emotionsabout losing them, but noted they’re probably older than 90 per-cent of the station’s human population.

“I view them as nostalgic old machines that should be put in amuseum somewhere,” he said. “But it’s time to modernize ourfleet.”

D-8 From page 7

Photo courtesy of Larry CookAn older model Challenger D-8 tractor clears snow nearMcMurdo Station. The bulldozers have a wider track than newermodels, making them more suitable for such work.

Model Drawbar pull Ground Pressure WeightSD-8LGP 94,000 lbs 4.3 psi 69,600 lbs. D-7HLGP 48,955 lbs. 6.9 psi 62,563 lbs. DV-87 Challenger 19,360 lbs. 4.6 psi 45,685 lbs. Challenger 65 12,480 lbs. 5.2 psi 31,000 lbs.Challenger 95 35,202 lbs. 5.3 psi 33,980 lbs.

Myers took an interest inAntarctic history during her pre-vious two tourist cruises to theAntarctic Peninsula and SouthernOcean, where she first conceivedher artistic vision to photographhumanity, past and present, on theAntarctic landscape.

“I realized I was interested inhuman activity in the landscapeor, in other words, what sort ofhistory goes through the land-scape,” said Myers in reference toher first two visits to theAntarctic. “While everyone wasshooting penguins, I was shootinghuts. In fact, if I had it to do overagain, I would have shot morepenguins.”

Myers got another chance todo it again. During the past fourmonths she has photographedeverything from spawning seaurchins and balloon launches toworkers in the dining hall andpenguins near McMurdo Station.Each time she looks for thehuman element that can speak tothe passing of time and humani-ty’s experiences and adjustmentsto being able to live and work onthe hostile continent.

“I’ve been photographing peo-ple much more than I normallydo. People are really part of thehistorical process here. The sci-ence support staff is why the sci-ence happens and they are partic-ipating in science,” said Myers.“So many people here are con-tributing and it goes unrecorded.”

Accustomed to photographingportraits and still life in previousprojects, Myers incorporates peo-ple into her scenes for visual per-spective in Antarctica.

“I’m always looking for whatis in the landscape. Here I’ve

found that I really like puttingpeople in the photos.” she said.“I’ve had to shift gears and payattention to the human element.”

Before Myers could come toAntarctica to work on her con-ceived project, she first had toobtain an invitation from theNational Science Foundation.

Aware of the notable photogra-phers preceding her, Myers knewshe needed to distinguish herself.She presented the NSF with thepossibility of a book that wouldchronicle human habitation in theextremely cold conditions of theAntarctic, in collaboration with awriter from the New York Times,Sandra Blakeslee. She alsoshowed the NSF handmade prints,using a process called palladium-platinum processing. It’s a craftwith origins dating back to thebeginning of photography in theearly 1800s and has been used bymany of history’s top photogra-phers such as Irving Penn andAlfred Stieglitz.

Museums and art collectorsvalue palladium-platinum printsbecause of their archival stabilityand the fine quality produced bythe handmade craftsmanship.Printed from a black and whitenegative, the images have aslightly “warm” cast and general-ly they hold more detail in darkand light values than in conven-tional silver prints.

To make a print, Myers mixesthe platinum-palladium emulsion,brushes it onto the paper, placesthe negative overtop and exposesthe image under UV light forabout three to five minutes.Unable to enlarge the photo in the

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun •9

See Myers on page 10

Top: This view of Beacon Valley in the Dry Valleysreminded fine art photographer Joan Myers of theFour Corners area of New Mexico, her home state.Above: Myers took this photograph of lake ice in theDry Valleys in November. “It was amazing,” saidMyers. “The ice is over a million years old.”

Envisioning the past to photograph the present

When fine art photographerJoan Myers looks through her viewfinder totake a photograph, she is also gazing at historyas if looking through a portal into years past.

Photographing history

Story by Melanie Conner, Sun Staff

10 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

printing process, Myers normally shoots mediumformat film and enlarges the negative to the size ofthe final print about 20 inches wide. At the time sheis taking the photographs, she is looking ahead andseeing the final printed results, said Myers.

Although Myers enjoys working with mediumformat cameras that produce large, high-definitionnegatives for her prints, she has tailored her pho-tography methods somewhat to meet her projectgoals while working within a prescribed set of cir-cumstances of cold, dry and windy conditions. Shedecided to work primarily in 35mm, high-resolu-tion digital photography.

While photographing during her last of two pre-vious trips to the Antarctic, she learned that 35mmcameras were easier to work with under harshweather conditions than larger, more cumbersomemedium format cameras.

Smaller cameras allow Myers to carry less cam-era equipment into the field and better protect hergear from cold weather and wind. Because of tech-nological advances in digital imaging, she is ableto photograph at a resolution capable of reproduc-ing large enough negatives for palladium-platinumprints.

“This is really not my medium. I really don’thave much experience with 35 mm,” she said.“With 120 film, you have to change the film every10 pictures. That is impossible here. I love to shootfour by five, but I just can’t do it here. It is too dif-ficult to change film every few frames.”

While Myers found the most practical camerasystem for her needs, she admitted to having lessluck in keeping her extremities warm.

“I just can’t find a good system for keeping myhands warm for shooting,” said Myers, who livesin Santa Fe, N.M. “I’ve tried several combinations,but nothing really works.”

“My first photo shoot on the Ice was at snow

Top: A Twin Otter aircraft flies above the Onset D field camp afterdropping off supplies for scientists and camp workers.“This is anexample of how one lives in a deep-field camp and the emptiness of theice sheet,” said Myers. Middle: A photograph of Mt. Newell shows ahuman presence on the Ice, but away from the major science stations.Above: Grantee Nelia Dunbar pokes her head into an ice cave on Mt.Erebus, one of Myers favorite photographic places.

Photographing history

I realized I wasinterested in human

activity in the landscape.

See Myers on page 11

Myers From page 9

”“

- Joan Myers

January 19, 2003

See Cold weather photo tips on page 12

school and we got a terrible blizzard and I got frost nip onthe ends of my fingers,” said Myers about the early-summerblizzard in October, shortly after her arrival at McMurdoStation. “My fingers stopped feeling cold and just feltwooden.”

She learned quickly everything functions differently incold weather from her fingertips to her cameras, to makingshooting more time consuming and arduous than it normal-ly would be.

“Most problems get started at about 20 below or colder,”said Myers. She said the challenges in changing lenses, fil-ters, switching cameras to shoot medium format film orkeeping track of pens and notebooks is more difficult whentrying to prevent equipment from freezing and gogglesfrom fogging.

“I didn’t think I would need an assistant, but it is verydifficult to do everything yourself. To take notes whileyou’re photographing and trying to stay warm is very diffi-cult,” she said. “I often forget to get people’s names, amongother things.”

Working in places ranging from deep-field camps to the

carpenter’s shop, Myers has kept a busy schedule of pho-tographing, writing notes and editing her images.

“If I spend a day out shooting, I will usually spend thenext two days in the office editing,” said Myers, who alsoupdates her online journal weekly.

Her rest will come soon when she leaves Antarctica tomeet her husband in New Zealand later this week. She willhave 12 days of relaxation before returning home to editand print photos and begin the production of her book.

Myers has a lot of work to do before her project is in itsfinal form. As for now, she remains enthused about her pho-tographic opportunities over the next few days as she thinksabout her own adaptations to the cold environment and per-sonal history in Antarctica.

“I love it here. This is the world’s greatest community.No weapons, no fighting, it’s safe and people are interest-ing,” said Myers. “I can have an interesting conversationwith a scientist at one meal and a janitor at the next. Youjust don’t get that anywhere else. I’ll really missMcMurdo.”

“Erebus was one of the most impressive places I went,” said Myers. “The volcano sends up heat and steam to form ice cavesand towers, making it a wonderful mixture of fire and ice.” In this photograph, Myers stood near the volcano's rim to photo-graph down into the crater.

Photographing history

The Antarctic Sun • 11

Myers From page 10

12• The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

• Keep equipment warm. Always tuck camera bod-ies, extra batteries, film, compact flash cards and othersensitive pieces in an inside pocket as close to your bodyas possible. While cumbersome, this will keep yourequipment functioning longer and help prevent damage.

• Take the extra step if needed. In extremely lowtemperatures such as the South Pole take only the essen-tial lenses and equipment outside with you, keepingyour camera bag inside a warm building. Go inside tochange lenses or film. This will allow for some of yourcamera equipment to stay warm, plus you will be able totake off your gloves to perform these functions.

• Cold hands. Try wearing hand warmers in-betweenyour glove liners and gloves. It may sometimes be nec-essary to take your gloves off, so be careful not to let thehand warmers fall out. Try to avoid removing glove lin-ers, as cold metal cameras can cause painful cold weath-er injuries. Everyone has a different method; talk to

friends and share ideas to find a solution that works foryou.

• Film speed. A film speed or digital setting of 400ISO for most outside situations allows for maximumdepth of field and for a high-quality image. However, inbright sunlight, with snow and ice reflecting light, using200 ISO film will allow for a wider aperture if this is thedesired affect.

• Exposure settings. The same way different filmtypes will render warm or cool tones, digital camerasalso vary on exposures. Some cameras will be manufac-tured to underexposed images slightly, while others mayoverexpose. Experiment with the exposure compensa-tion mode to determine a baseline that works for you.Don’t assume every camera is the same. Bracket yourexposures.

“I’ve never photographed this kind of thing before,” said Myers. Photographing this sea spider was one of her firstattempts at close-up science photography. For this photograph, Myers collected black rocks from around McMurdoStation rocks, cleaned out a tank and ran a hose into the tank with streaming salt water to keep the water clear and coldfor the critters. “It took days to photograph this,” she said. “The critter didn’t move very fast. That was helpful,” she said.

See Tips on page 13

Photographing history

Cold weather photo hints

Here are some tips that might help you when photographing in Antarctica or other cold climates

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 13

• Bright light. When photographing against awhite surface, normally the subject will be underex-posed when the pictures come back from the lab.You will need to “open up” about a stop. Be carefulnot to overcompensate, as the snow will reflect asubstantial amount of light onto the photo subjectand all detail in the snow, pressure ridges or sastrugiwill be lost. Try experimenting with fill flash.

• Flat light. Diffused sunlight will scatter andbounce around, turning everything blue on film. Tryusing a UV warming filter to reduce the blue castand allow whites to remain white and flesh tones tolook accurate.

• Tripods. Use a tripod. Even on the sunniestdays, a small aperture for maximum depth-of-field,combined with a polarizing filter, can force you toshoot at slow shutter speeds that could record cam-era shake. “Even 1/1000 of a second can show shakeif the print is produced large enough,” says JoanMyers.

• Reducing condensation. Condensation canallow moisture to get inside your camera or lensesand destroy the electronics. If going from the coldinto a moist environment like the greenhouse or thedining hall at the South Pole, place your camerainside a plastic bag to keep it dry until it begins towarm up.

• Reducing dust. Try to minimize lens changing.The instant a lens is removed dust is introduced intothe system. This is especially true of photographingnear McMurdo Station, with ultra-fine, glass-likevolcanic dust from Mt. Erebus, blowing around inthe wind, that is capable of destroying equipment.Zooms allow you to work within a range, allowingfor more composition options without changinglenses. When changing a lens, keep the body facingdownward, to prevent dust from falling into thebody. Finally, static electricity will increase dust.Stay grounded on metal when changing lenses anddon’t rub your feet on the carpet first.

tips From page 12

Top: An Adelie penguin cares for its chick at Beaufort Island. “It’s such ahostile continent, that you just want to photograph anything alive likediatoms and fish, but especially ‘cute’ life,” said Myers. Middle: A seal pupcuddles with its mother near Razorback Island. “I photographed next to theresearchers and I had to move very slowly and get around the animals,” said Myers. Above: Adelie penguins at Beaufort Island, a placedescribed by Myers as “magical, wild and beautiful.”Joan Myers at McMurdo Station.

Photographing history

Photo by Melanie Conner/Antarctic Sun

14 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

“It’s the longest channel we’ve seen inrecent years,” said NSF RepresentativeDave Bresnahan, who has many years expe-rience in the Antarctic.

It was also one of the hardest to create.From the moment the Polar Sea hit the edgeof the fast ice it’s had to grind throughunforgiving ice. At the edge, where the iceis thinnest, it was 4 feet (1.2 meters), thick-er than usual.

“Basically we’ve been going throughsome pretty tough ice conditions,” said lieu-tenant junior grade Lance Tinstman aboardthe Polar Sea. “This is some of the thickestfast ice that anyone’s seen.”

The Polar Sea followed last year’s chan-nel through the fast ice, which shows up asgrooves in the snow. While that’s been thepath of least resistance, it’s still been diffi-cult. The ice reached 12 to 13 feet (~4 m)thick, with a couple feet of snow on topsoftening the breakers blows “like a ham-mer hitting a pillow,” Tinstman said.

For a while the Polar Sea was advancingonly 100 to 300 yards (90-270m) an hour,with a combination of its three engines andturbines running. One day the breakermoved less than a mile in 15 hours. Whilecutting the worst ice, the breaker burned4,000 gallons (15,000 liters) of fuel an hour.It’s now refueled, taking on 620,000 gallons(2.3 mil. liters) last weekend.

The broken starboard propeller and hub,46-tons together, cannot be fixed until thePolar Sea returns to Seattle, Brown said.

“This is a shipyard drydock repair only,”Brown said. “There are only two to threespecialized hubs of this nature in exis-tence.”

The limping icebreaker will continueworking to widen the channel and turningbasin, and clear out some of the ice with theremaining center and port-side propellers.

Marble Point will probably be refueled byland traverse, instead of sending the PolarSea and more tasks will be left for the back-up icebreaker, the Healy.

“We can anticipate the Healy will bemore involved with channel operations thanshe would have been before,” Brown said.

The Coast Guard recommended sendingHealy to assist in icebreaking operations, arecommendation with which NSF con-curred. The final decision was made Jan. 3.

The Healy left Seattle Jan. 10 and is nowheading south past Hawaii. It’s a new direc-tion for the two-year-old Healy, which wasdesigned with Arctic research in mind andhas made three NSF-sponsored missions tothe Arctic, including reaching the NorthPole Sept. 6, 2001.

“After this trip we’ll have been to bothextremes,” said lieutenant junior grade DanEverette aboard the Healy.

The Healy is expected to arrive at theMcMurdo Sound ice edge in early Februaryand spend a month escorting other vesselsthrough the ice. The Coast Guard assuredthe director of the Office of Polar Programsthat the Healy will return north in time toresume its regular missions to the Arctic inJune.

“It’s definitely needed,” Tinstman said.“It’s going to be well appreciated.”

The new cargo vessel, the AmericanTern, left Port Hueneme, Calif., Jan. 5 and isexpected at the ice edge by the beginning ofFebruary. The fuel tanker will be about aweek behind. The annual visit by the cargoship and tanker provides the food, fuel andmaterials needed to run the U.S. researchstations and field camps on the Antarcticcontinent for the next year. They are notconstructed to go through the heavy packice and narrow fast ice channels alone.

“The freighter and the tanker are ice-

strengthened, but they are not icebreakers,”Ocean Projects Manager Sutherland said.“If they have an icebreaker immediately infront of them – they have to stay almostbow to stern – the icebreaker is essentiallyshedding all the ice.”

It’s the second year difficult sea ice con-ditions in the Ross Sea have led the CoastGuard to respond by sending a secondbreaker. Usually a single Coast Guard ice-breaker, the Polar Sea or Polar Star, cuts achannel through the fast ice for the supplyships. In good years, the first cut from theice edge to McMurdo has been made in aday, Brown said.

The last few years have not been good.Last season it took the Polar Star nine daysto cut the channel, even with the Polar Seacoming down to help out. This month thePolar Sea exceeded that, taking 11 days toget from the ice edge to McMurdo. The lasttime breaking ice took that long was 1983,when the breaker spent a dozen days gettingto McMurdo.

McMurdo isn’t the only station recentlyplagued with difficult sea ice. In the south-ern Weddell Sea last year the ice was theworst in at least 50 years and the annualrelief ship wasn’t able to reach HalleyStation for the first time since it was estab-lished in 1956, according to SteveHarangozo of the British Antarctic Survey.Instead, the relief ship had to stop 180 miles(300 km) from the station and aircraft shut-tled the cargo and passengers back andforth.

The problems in the Weddell Sea werecaused by temporary changes in the usualwind and ice flow patterns, which pushedthe pack ice up against the southernWeddell Sea coast instead of out to sea, asdiscussed in a paper by Harangozo and J.

Healy From page 1

The icebreaker Polar Sea, right, stops tolet the crew celebrate New Year’s on thesea ice as it broke the original channel.

Above, some of the flows of pack ice heldin by iceberg C19.

Photo by Joan Myers/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Photo by Melanie Conner/The Antarctic Sun

See Healy on page 15

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 15

Turner in Geophysical Research Letters last year.“Basically there were very strong, sustained northerly winds that

were pushing the ice down toward the southern Weddell Sea overthree months,” Harangozo said.

This year the sea ice in the Weddell Sea is back to normal and theship made it in without problems, Harangozo said. He thinks a simi-lar temporary change in the atmosphere and wind patterns may bekeeping the sea ice in the southern Ross Sea from opening up. TheAmundsen Sea Low, which usually produces southerly winds to blowout the Ross sea ice, is much weaker than normal this year. Instead,the low pressure systems have been in or northwest of the Ross Sea,creating northerly winds, Harangozo said.

“These northerly winds melt the ice at the ice edge, but they alsocompress and push the remaining ice south, so that the polynya (open-ing in the sea ice) is unable to develop,” Harangozo said. “This com-pression could produce the thick, and presumably high concentration,sea ice reported en route to McMurdo.”

The sea ice has been growing in the Ross Sea for a while, part of atrend of slightly increasing ice around Antarctica as a whole. Based onsatellite observations, the overall Antarctic sea ice increased by about11,000 square kilometers from 1979 to 1998, according to a paper byH.J. Zwally in the Journal of Geophysical Research. While theexpanding sea ice is a seasonal phenomenon around most of the con-tinent, the Ross Sea is the one area where the sea ice was pushing far-ther out year round. Though this is the opposite trend from what’sbeen seen in the Arctic, where sea ice has been diminishing, it is con-sistent with predictions of global warming in which increased snow onthe Southern Ocean would insulate the sea ice, according to Zwally.

“That has not been observed directly, that is in the coupled oceanand atmosphere model

“The Ross Sea had one of the largest increasing trends of sea iceduring this 20-year time period,” Zwally said, increasing 12 percent inthe summer and 4 percent in the winter.

Last year the fast ice was looking equally troublesome inMcMurdo Sound until a late December storm blew out some of theice. That storm was unusual compared to weather patterns in preced-ing years, said University of Wisconsin meteorologist Matt Lazzara,currently doing research in McMurdo. So far the weather aroundMcMurdo Sound this year has been more normal, Lazzarra said.

The greatest effect on the McMurdo fast ice comes from large ice-bergs blocking the usual patterns of wind, current and sea ice, saidJudy Shaffier, who studies and predicts Antarctic sea ice for theNational Ice Center.

Inside the Healy

Built for Arctic scienceThe newest icebreaker in the Coast Guard’s fleet was

designed with polar science in mind.The two-year-old Healy has more lab space on board than

the 20-year-old Polar Star and Polar Sea, but less horsepower.Designed with input from the University NationalOceanographic Laboratory System, the Healy has seven labo-ratories and more than 5,000 square feet of laboratory and sci-ence support rooms.

Though it’s coming to Antarctica to help supply vesselsreach McMurdo this year, the Healy’s usual mission is to takescientists into the Arctic Ocean. Last year it carried out theNational Science Foundation-supported Western Shelf BasinsInteractions project, which is looking for early indicators of cli-mate change in the Arctic. Researchers on a previous Healycruise found evidence that the Arctic’s Gakkel Ridge, theworld’s slowest spreading mid-ocean ridge, may be very vol-canically active.

Usually the more powerful Polar Star and Polar Sea taketurns coming to Antarctica, and last year both breakers camedown together. This year the Star is in dry dock having regularmaintenance done, so it wasn’t available to go south. As a con-tingency plan, the Healy crew was notified in mid-Decemberthat they might be sent to Antarctica to back up the Polar Seaand they were ready when the decision was made in January,said LTJG Dan Everette aboard the Healy.

Until now, the farthest south the Healy has been was thePanama Canal. Though the breaker hasn’t been to theAntarctic, a number of the crewmembers have, including thecaptain and executive officer.

“We’re looking forward to seeing what the ship can actual-ly do in the ice,” Everette said.

The Healy has less than half the horsepower of the Polarclass icebreakers and is capable of breaking up to 4.5 feet of iceat a speed of 3 knots, or 8 feet backing and ramming.

“It’s a less capable icebreaker than the two other icebreak-ers, the Polar Sea and the Polar Star, which are the most pow-erful conventional icebreakers, non-nuclear icebreakers, in theworld,” said Dirk Kristensen, a designer of ice capable vesselsfor the Glosten Associates in Seattle.

Both the Coast Guard and NSF are confident Healy can doits job in the Antarctic. In its last trip to the Arctic the Healyforced its way through 12- to 13-foot ice.

“It isn’t just driving from point A to point B, there are dif-ferent techniques you use,” Everette said.

Both the Healy and the Polar Class ships have similar com-promises in their hull designs, Kristensen said. The ideal ice-breaking hull has a broad, flat bow. But to cross open water, asthe breakers do between their homeport in Seattle and missionsin the Arctic and Antarctic, requires a deeper, more angled hull.

The Polar Sea and Polar Star also tend to have frequentmechanical problems because their propellers stick out fromthe sides. The way the hull is shaped, chunks of ice broken atthe bow have a tendency to slide along the hull and hit the pro-pellers, Kristensen said.

On Thursday one of the Polar Sea’s propellers broke andthe blade fell to the ocean floor. In 1994 the Polar Sea lost apropeller blade at the North Pole.

The Healy has fewer propeller problems, Everette said,because the two propeller shafts are “nestled underneath theboat.”

“They’re pretty well protected from ice coming down alongthe hull,” he said.

Photo by Keoni Galletes/USCGA five-ton blades is missing from the 16-foot starboard propeller, above,on the Polar Sea. The entire propeller weighs 46 tons.

Healy From page 14

See Healy on page 16

16 • The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

and Radioscience Laboratory at StanfordUniversity.

Airplanes typically fly up to six miles(10km) high, the ozone is measured withballoons at 19 miles (30km) and satellitescan’t go below 155 miles (250km) becausethe air gets too dense and causes too muchfriction for them to orbit around the planet.

The only way to measure the mesos-phere and lower thermosphere is by pass-ing very low frequency electromagneticwaves through it, Inan said. Such wavesare generated naturally by events such aslightning strikes, but the transmitter at theSouth Pole – where there are no thunder-storms – allows for more controlled obser-vations.

The signals produced by the South PoleVLF beacon transmitter will be receivedat Palmer Station and coastal Antarctic

stations of other countries, providing ascan of the ionospheric regions it passesthrough. This season’s assembly and con-struction of the transmitter marked thebeginning of the second year of researchon the three-year project, funded by agrant from the National ScienceFoundation.

Though it’s not well understood, themesosphere and lower ionosphere do havea strong effect on things we all pay atten-tion to and at some level depend on. High-speed electrons that populate the Earth’sradiation belts can damage spacecraft andflip satellites.

“The weather in space is very, veryimportant for our technological age now,because we have so much of our assets inspace,” Inan said.

The highest energy electrons can also

penetrate as low as 25 miles (40km) abovethe Earth, where they can “wreak havoc inthe atmosphere, ionizing chemical species,creating x-rays and perhaps influencingthe chemistry that produces ozone,” henoted in a summary of the project.

Events such as solar flare-ups and geo-magnetic disturbances trigger the “particleprecipitation,” said Robert Moore, aresearch assistant working on the projectfor his dissertation.

“There are a number of different theo-ries saying ‘This is why this type of eventhappens,’” he said. “But we don’t haveany data to back it up.”

Inan, who is also conducting VLFresearch in the U.S. and Canada, said thenew South Pole transmitter should helpscientists better understand and someday

VLF From page 1

Photos by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic SunMichael Holstine, above left, and Robert Moorewait outside a research hut that provides powerto the Very Low Frequency antenna, about one

mile away on the snow road in the background.At right, they examine the VLF antenna with

Vladimir Papitashvili, right, that assists in col-lecting data about the upper atmosphere.

Photo by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic Sun

See VLF on page 17

“The icebergs seems to be affecting the typical wind and currentflow,” Shaffier said. “With (icebergs) C16 and B15 grounded wherethey’re at, that has a lot of effect down there.”

Icebergs C16 and the much longer B15 took up residence off thenorth end of Ross Island almost three years ago, creating a wall ofice 100 feet high and 900 feet deep that is diverting the usual clock-wise current that flows westward along the front of the Ross IceShelf from scooping into McMurdo Sound, bringing in warmerwater to melt the ice and carrying broken ice north.

The situation worsened this year when another large iceberg,C19, settled in somewhat north and perpendicular to B15. C19 isacting like an ice dam, trapping miles of heavy pack ice behind it.

“I’m not surprised that they’re going in for some help,” Shaffiersaid. “We kind of figured C19 would wreak a little havoc downthere.”

Besides causing problems for the icebreaker, the icepack keptresearchers on the Nathaniel B. Palmer from mapping sections ofthe continental slope, as they’d planned.

How long it stays and how much havoc it will wreak areunknown. For a while C19 seemed to be hung up on two submarinebanks, about 250 to 270 meters deep at their shallowest points, said

Stan Jacobs, Lamont oceanographer. C19 is bouncing a little inplace and recently swung its western end a little farther north, saidKelly Brunt, a geographic information systems analyst at McMurdoStation who tracks the bergs. If it keeps swinging it could re-orientitself in a north-south position and be carried away by the currents.But there’s also a chance that the movement has jammed the east-ern end of the iceberg into a rise in the ocean floor called thePennell Bank.

“It doesn’t take much to ground it, slow it down, get it stuck, butit also doesn’t take much to get it going again,” said Andy Bliss, agraduate student at the University of California who has beenstudying the movements of Ross Sea icebergs with University ofChicago researcher Doug MacAyeal.

If C19 stays it will continue to hold in the pack ice, which willfreeze in for another season, Shaffier said. That would make the iceblocking the way to McMurdo even worse next year, saidMacAyeal, a professor of geophysical sciences.

“I hope it goes away because if it doesn’t you’ll have an evenmore intense sea ice anomaly next year,” MacAyeal said.

Healy From page 15

predict this “space weather.”Data from the antenna can also be used to study more tradi-

tional weather effects, Inan wrote in a summary of his project. Hecited a past example of intense precipitation over South Americadue to the South Atlantic Anomaly, noting that the positioning ofthe antenna and a receiver at Palmer Station provides uniquepositioning to study the phenomena.

The beacon “will measure the temporal variations and alsoassess the local time distribution via measurements on a set ofdistributed paths,” he noted.

The transmitter antenna needs to be very long in order totransmit a low enough frequency that the wavelength will bounceoff the mesosphere and lower ionosphere. The frequency neededto be in the 10 to 25 kilohertz range. In comparison, an AM sta-tion broadcasts at 800 kilohertz. Software written by Mooreallows the VLF beacon to transmit at various frequencies, with orwithout modulation, and to perform diagnostic measurements.

A shorter antenna, of say 328 feet (100m), could easily broad-cast at a much higher frequency of three megahertz. But to golower requires longer antennas. Inan needed an antenna at leastfour miles (7km) long.

There aren’t many places to put such a long antenna, espe-cially since it needed to be elevated off the ground, for the samereason a household television antenna works better when put onthe roof instead of the ground.

“South Pole is an absolutely fantastic platform for thisbecause of the snow,” Inan said.

Nearly two miles (3km) of snow and ice below the South Poleact to insulate and lift the antenna off the ground. Additionally,the antenna line is 16 feet (5m) above the surface of the snow, on125 poles set 250 feet (78m) apart running parallel to the SouthPole runway.

The poles are bolted to sheets of plywood buried about threeto four feet beneath the surface, held secure from the elements bysnow that freezes solid within a day, Moore said. He saidresearchers expect little trouble with the beacon, despite themiles of poles and lines exposed to the polar elements.

“The only real maintenance on this antenna will be trying toreverse the effects of snow drift,” he said, noting the poles can beraised as needed.

The antenna should be better suited for long-term research –should the project be extended – than a similar transmitter usedat Siple Station between 1972 and 1988, Moore said. The Sipleantenna had to be dug up and replanted every year since the snowaccumulation there was about three feet per year.

Finished in December, the South Pole antenna started trans-mitting this month. It operates for one minute out of every 15minutes, using 5 to 6 kilowatts of power, then recharging its bat-teries for 14 minutes via a 1.2-mile (2km) cable linking it to aportable science research building where data is recorded.

“We don’t want to use too much power,” Inan said. “Duringthe one minute, we transmit at high power from the batteries.”

The transmitter’s placement at the South Pole will be advan-tageous for other reasons as well. The South Pole is situated sothat a signal from there will pass through one of the most dis-turbed areas of the outer radiation belt and then be easily pickedup by existing receivers at Palmer Station, Inan said.

“The South Pole and Palmer geometricy works beautifully forthis experiment,” Inan said. “It’s really unique.”

Receiving the signal doesn’t require a large antenna – the oneat Palmer is 30 feet (9m) tall – but it must be away from electri-cal interference by computers, microwaves, generators and otherelectronics.

“Our antenna is extremely sensitive. You could bring yourdigital watch up to it and it would receive it,” Inan said.

The signal will also be picked up at the AutomaticGeophysical Observatories (AGOs) on the plateau and atreceivers being built at stations belonging to other countries in alldirections across the continent. Among the bases are McMurdoStation, Britain’s Halley Bay, Brazil’s Commandante Ferraz,South Africa’s Sanae, Japan’s Syowa and the Italian/FrenchConcordia station.

“This is an international program where basically other coun-tries will receive the signal. As they do so they will measure [themesosphere and lower thermosphere above] other parts of thecontinent,” Inan said.

Transmissions fromthe VLF beacon atthe South Pole willbe sent to coastalAntarctic stationsfrom several nations.

January 19, 2003 The Antarctic Sun • 17

VLF From page 16

Photo by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic SunRobert Moore, a research assistant, and Vladimir Papitashvili dis-cuss the connection of a power cord to the VLF beacon.

Stanford University

18• The Antarctic Sun January 19, 2003

P r o f i l eBy Kristan Hutchison/Sun staff

Seal scientist picks up trout fishing

After 30 years studying We d d e l lseals in McMurdo Sound, DonS i n i ff plans to focus his attentionon trout.

He’ll be catching the fish, rather thancounting them, from the stream runningthrough the Wisconsin farm he and hiswife fixed up.

“I doubt if you’ll see me in McMurdoagain,” said Siniff, who is retiring fromthe University of Minnesota at the end ofthe academic year.

From that land-locked university,Siniff has taught a generation of marinemammal scientists, sometimes jokinglycalled the “Minnesota mafia.”

“Don has probably trained close tohalf the marine mammal scientists work-ing in North America,” said Bob Garrott,who worked with Siniff as a PhD studentand is now taking over his populationstudy of Weddell seals in the Antarctic.

Siniff remains a co-investigator onwhat is now a National ScienceFoundation grant to Garrott and JayRotella, both scientists in the ecologydepartment at Montana State Universityin Bozeman. In Siniff’s final season onthe Ice, he and Garrott went into the fieldtogether. They would rise by 6 a.m., go tothe equipment hut and brew coffee whileeveryone else slept. Don sat in a beat-upeasy chair by the stove while Garrottperched on a desk and they talked forhours about Antarctic science and theseals and doing work on the Ice.

“It was a wonderful thing after allthose years,” Garrott said. “He’s quite thementor.”

Si n i ff hadn’t expected to spend somuch of his career in A n t a r c t i c a .Having finished his PhD at theUniversity of Minnesota, he expect-

ed he’d go back to Alaska where he’d recent-ly finished a census of caribou and brownb e a r. Then he heard the National ScienceFoundation wanted to count the seals inAntarctica. Having done some tagging ofstellar sea lions in Alaska, Siniff put in a pro-posal to do the Antarctic work.

He was 32 when he took his first tripsouth in 1968, looking for crabeater andleopard seals from aboard the icebreakerG l a c i e r. The next year he came toMcMurdo to work with Weddells. Hesoon realized that it would be possible todo a population study there.

“The other species haven’t really lend-ed themselves to the situation you have in

McMurdo, where they are long-lived andthey return to the same location,” Siniffsaid.

The Weddells are easy to approachand handle, unlike other large mammalsSiniff studied. He once ended up chasingan injured leopard seal around an ice floe.Leopard seals are about 7-feet-long,1,000 lbs, with “an impressive set ofteeth,” Siniff said.

“It was a little dicey, but at the time,when you’re young and foolish, youd o n ’t really realize you shouldn’t bedoing this,” Siniff said.

He was lucky. In all his years studyingbears in Alaska, wild horses in Nevadaand leopard seals in Antarctica he wasnever injured.

Siniff wore out a lot of red parkasthough, staining them with seal fat or oilfrom the stove and ripping them as heworked. In his early years of Antarcticresearch the scientists had to set up andtake care of their own camps. NowRaytheon Polar Services has people to setup and manage the field camps, but itused to be that Siniff would arrive inMcMurdo to find a fish hut waiting in

front of the station for him to hook up andtow into position. The work was cold,vigorous and satisfying.

“It’s my kind of science,” Siniff said.“I’m a disaster in the laboratory. I was afarm kid from Ohio and somehow that fitthe type of work that I could do.”

Funded with a series of three-yeargrants from the National ScienceFoundation, Siniff’s study of theWeddell seal population has grown

into a unique and consistent set of data goingback to 1970. Weddell seals live only 28 to30 years, so all the seals in the sound havegrown up in the study, and the ages of about60 percent of them are known.

“There can’t be more than five long-term studies of this caliber in the entireworld, if there’s that many,” Garrott said.

The Weddell seal data could becomeeven more valuable in coming years, asthe pressure to fish around Antarcticaincreases, Garrott said. At the top of thefood chain, Weddell seals may helpresearchers track changes in some of theharder to study species below them.

Siniff’s contributions to science go farbeyond the results of his research or eventhe many students he’s mentored. Siniffhas served on committees and panels,including several within the ScientificCommittee on Antarctic Research andbeen on recovery teams for sea otters andsea lions.

“That’s the one incredible value of theAntarctic program, I might add, is theinternational aspect of dealing with yourcolleagues around the world,” Siniff said.

Siniff listens more than he talks,accommodating others and setting anexample of respectful dialogue. When hedoes speak out, in his quiet Midwesternway, people listen.

“I can’t overemphasize how much heis respected,” Garrott said. “There’s lotsof jealousy and cliqué groups in scienceand Don just transcends all of those. He’swell respected by everybody he meets.”

Siniff plans to stay involved in manyof the scientific committees, but he’s alsolooking forward to nonscientific pursuits,like trout fishing and visits from hisgrandkids.

“I don’t have any great plans, I hope tokeep involved a little bit with Antarcticthings,” Siniff said. But if he comes toAntarctica again, Siniff said it might beon a cruise ship instead of a research ves-sel.

Don has probably

trained close to half the

marine mammal scientists working in NorthAmerica.

“

”Bob Garrott, seal researcher