On Friday I had the opportunity to speak with Karen, the McMurdo Station staffer in charge of field safety. Karen has a difficult task, coordinating the safe operations for a diverse array of field projects throughout the season. Aiding her in this is a staff of experienced guides. These individuals are responsible for training the science teams for safe travel over sea ice and glacial terrain, scouting hazardous terrain, and accompanying the science teams on their initial forays into these areas. By November, when most scientists begin to arrive at McMurdo, the staff will have thoroughly scouted the surrounding area and established safe zones of transit over the sea ice and glaciers. When we arrive in late August we will have the privilege of being the first to venture out onto the sea ice of McMurdo Sound this year. We hope to travel all the way to the sea ice edge near Cape Evans (see map below), which according to Karen is unprecedented for the USAP this early in the season.
With the privilege of being first out comes several challenges and some responsibility. Only two guides are presents at McMurdo until mid-October, so our team must be reasonably self-sufficient. The weather will be unpredictable and temperatures pretty low. Added to this is the need to travel over very thin, young sea ice to collect frost flowers (see previous post). Falling through this thin ice, hours from McMurdo, in very low temperatures is an unpleasant thought. To guard against this we will employ safety tethers, life jackets, and drysuits while sampling. One team member will stand on thick ice, managing the safety tether for the team member actively sampling. This system has worked well for us on sea ice near Barrow, Alaska. Hopefully it works equally well in Antarctica!
The map below shows Ross Island, home to McMurdo Station. The station is located on the strip of land projecting from the lower left of Ross Island. North from the station, past the tongue of Erebus Glacier, are the Dellbridge Islands. This island group is our first target, as open leads can be found here throughout the winter. After exploring the Dellbridge Islands we will start traveling further north from McMurdo, toward Cape Evans. We expect to encounter the ice edge near here, and this is where we will spend most of our time. Unfortunately this is several hours from McMurdo, and we have to return to the station each night!
If we can’t find the right ice conditions here we will need to wait until the station’s helicopters are operational to travel further out. This won’t happen until mid-October, but with the helicopters we can reach almost anyplace around Ross Island. Highly variable ice conditions west of Cape Crozier, toward Cape Tennyson and into Lewis Bay, will provide lots of opportunities…
