Now I've got a little motivation to get this blog going. I had to take the Antarctic photos off my website because I went over my disk quota! I am so used to academic internet accounts where I had seemingly unlimited amounts of disk space at my disposal. Sigh.


Wondering what our GPR antennas looked like? Allan arrived on November 24 and we spent the day helping him set up his tent and get his gear unpacked, as well as putting away more supplies that came with him (beer!) On the next day, we set up the 100 MHz antenna and tried it out. It is kind of like a big sled. It moves across rocks and dirt about like you might expect a sled to. One improvement I could think of for this particular area would have been a sheet of plastic across the entire bottom because rocks kept getting caught on the edges of the red boxes.


We set up about 4 lines and tried to figure out a scheme. That particular area was very very rocky, and we kept getting interference in the radar profiles (we learned later it was caused by various things jiggling too much!) So we learned right off the bat that we would have to do some rock clearing before pulling the antenna - or find smoother places to pull. The 400 MHz antenna is much smaller. We put it in a sled (photo later) - a real sled this time, made by Mountainsmith. This sled did not get caught and was easier to pull.


After a few runs with the GPR and GPS, we went back to the cook tent for dinner and discussed a map created by Hall and Denton in 2000. It is the only really good map of Taylor Valley marking the geological and geomorphological features.

Why is it so hard to bring a blog up to the present? It is much more interesting to keep it current. Well, that is one reason. Time is a problem too. I've been processing GPR profiles for my graduate work and it takes a lot of time. I haven't even gotten to interpreting them. Here is a piece of one profile I just finished. To see the entire profile, click here.

After a great Thanksgiving dinner, we decided to opt out on a helicopter ride back. Instead, we walked a different route so we could see even more of the terrain. It was beautiful. First we walked along the edge of Lake Hoare and Canada Glacier, then we walked up towards Nussbaum Riegel, near a popular ventifact that Jon went to check out. Mike and Ron discussed the layout of the landscape and took photos. We also had a great view from up there. I just took it all in and tried to learn as much as I could from what Ron and Mike discussed.


Ron also showed us some efflorescent salts near a site he has studied in the past. Ron studies salts in glacial sediments and ice (one of the many things he studies!)



After discussion and observation, we felt somewhat elated and thought the situation was deserving of some celebration. Thus, we broke out the cigars. Mike had brought cigars for special occasions and this was definitely one of those times. Although Jon did not take one for himself, he seemed to enjoy or at least be amused by watching Mike, Ron and myself.

There was a thin layer of clouds high in the sky by that time. We eventually reached our camp sometime after 9pm. A good day - and the start of the bad hair!

Thanksgiving dinner at Lake Hoare was exceptional in all regards. We met a lot of interesting people, some we knew and others were new! Emily, my McMurdo dorm mate, was there with her work partner Ray. I had met Peter Doran in McMurdo, as well as while I was the data manager of the McMurdo LTER. Several people Mike and Ron knew were there, including John Priscu. I met Kathy Welch for the first time. She works for the LTER and has been coming to Antarctica for quite a while. She is also a former UNH student. What a nice person too! Hassan Basagic is another person I met. He has a new job with the LTER, but I think he has been to Antarctica before. Also a very nice person. I happened to have my computer with me (??) and, besides checking email with it, I used it to help Hassan reconfigure the GPS base station to collect data at 5 second intervals to match our collection rate. Other people I met at Thanksgiving dinner were Jessie, Matt, many more!


By the way, you will see that Lake Hoare has a lot of fun wearing wigs at special occasions. Mike took part in this too, as you can see! Lots of fun!




Wonderful food and company really made the day pleasant. I found a photo Hassan had taken of the great pies that were made so I am including those here. At one point, John stood up and shared some very kind words with everyone and it made the experience feel very warm and welcoming. A great way to start our season in the Dry Valleys. It was also nice knowing those people were also out there doing work and we were not alone.