Antarctica Q and A with 6th graders

The following are Seths' answers to questions from a 6th grade class in Montana.

November 13, 2007

B: Wind is a big factor here. The wind is ALWAYS blowing... usually from the ocean. Sometimes it's a slight breeze and sometimes it's pretty hard. Occasionally we get katabatic (cat-a-baa-tik) winds that come from further up the valley. These are very strong and can reach 100 to 200 knots (1 knot= 1.15 mph). Everything around our camp is either tied down, strapped to something heavy, or has a large rock on top of it.

The Dry Valleys are abandoned every year by the end of April and no one returns until early Oct. So for 6 months our equipment is left on it's own. We take every precaution to make sure that nothing gets blown away during the winter storms. However, our ropes break sometimes. As you may have seen from the USGS journal, one of the winds blew over our gage and dumped it in the stream bed this past winter. We didn't lose anything because the gage stayed closed, but it was a close call. So for the most part all of our gear is where we left it and intact. There are also flags used to mark the locations of gear that may have been covered by snow.

T: An orifice line is a piece of tubing that we use to monitor the amount of water flowing in the streams. It's fairly complicated and even moreso without being able to explain it in person, but this is how it works: nitrogen gas is pumped through the tube and bubbles out the end. Another piece of equipment called a pressure transducer measures the amount of pressure needed to push the nitrogen out. We take the number the pressure transducer gives us and create a mathematical relationship that gives us the discharge (stream flow).

K: I was about 20 years old when I first started working for the USGS. At first I was working in Helena and taking field trips to Glacier National Park and around the High Line during the summers maintaining and installing gages. Then I graduated from college in 2004 and moved to Billings. That's when I heard about the work the USGS was doing in Antarctica and I decided that I'd like to make it down here.

S: We are issued all sorts of Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) clothing from the United States Antarctic Program in Christchurch, New Zealand. You've probably already noticed the large down filled parkas. We refer to it as "Big Red". There is also a windbreaker jacket not nearly as heavy that we call "Little Red". Those are what most people wear while down here. We are also issued wool socks, fleece jackets, neck warmers, gloves, mittens, long underwear, and snowpants. The boots we get are called bunny boots. They are the big white ones you'll see in pictures occasionally. The bunny boots are all plastic with 2 inches of insulation on the bottom to keep you off the snow and ice. When we fly in helicopters we are required to wear our ECW in case of emergencies.

M: Most of the training I've needed I received in the U.S. I've worked for the USGS for the last 3 years learning the basics of stream-gaging. That includes measuring the amount of water flowing down a stream and collecting water samples. The special training I've needed down here is helicopter, ATV, and snowmobile safety. I also attended Happy Camper which is a 2 day/1 night class where we are taught how to set up a camp and survive on our own in Antarctica.

A: Unfortunately, there isn't much wildlife in the Dry Valleys. We are about 10 miles from the coast which is a long ways if your waddling like a penguin or crawling like a seal. We haven't seen anything alive yet. Penguins and seals do come up the valley, but they are lost and won't survive unless they make it back to the ocean. We come across mummified seal carcasses every once in awhile. Because of the extreme cold there isn't much bacteria to decay them so they may be intact for years. If I see anything though I'll be sending pictures!

November 25, 2007

M: The formations are made on the lake ice throughout the season. It's a process that involves wind and sun. The wind blows sediment onto the ice. Then as the dirt heats up and retains heat it increases the amount of ice melting around it.

A: Pad Thai is an Asian dish from Thailand. It's a bunch of noodles with egg, vegetables, coconut milk, curry, and shrimp or chicken or tofu. If you like Chinese food, you'd probably like Pad Thai.

K: I've been so busy and I'm around so many new people that I don't really get lonely. Besides, I've always been content with where I am. I miss seeing my family and friends back in the States, but if I focused on that, then I'd miss out on all the amazing opportunities for me here. :)

B: A Sutron 9210 is a piece of equipment called a data-logger that records values measured in the field. We use it with other equipment that allows us to transmit the data to our servers in the States via satellites. We're installing it at one of our gages here in Antarctica so that we can get "real-time" information about the Onyx River in the Wright Valley. The USGS uses equipment like this to monitor the nation's water. You can look to see how much water is flowing down most rivers in the MT (check out the Missouri at Virgelle) at the USGS webpage: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mt/nwis/rt We record data every 15 minutes and the data is updated throughout the day.

T: Actually, there are different time zones in Antarctica. Each station uses the same time zone as the country that it's supplied from. For example since McMurdo and the South Pole are supplied from New Zealand, we use their time zone. Palmer station on the west side of the continent is supplied from Chile so they use their time zone.

S: The coldest weather I've experienced so far was -15 F (-40 F with windchill). The warmest was +30 F. Most of the days have been aroudn 10-20 F without windchill.

B: Yes, I have been where I was just standing on ice with only ocean below me. When I was at Happy Camper we were on the Ross Ice Shelf. The ice shelf is where several glaciers come together at the coast of Antarctica and flow into the ocean. It is several hundred feet thick at this point and extends miles into the ocean.

A: Part of the gear issued to us are goggles and sunglasses. We make sure to wear them whenever we're outside. Being in the Dry Valleys it's not quite so important because there isn't as much snow to reflect the light. However, the sun is very bright and intense... and up 24 hours a day. No one on my team has gotten snow blindness, but I know it is a problem in Antarctica.

K: The helicopters come from McMurdo Station across the sound. We schedule rides when we want to visit sites around the other lakes in the Dry Valleys. Tomorrow we're going to leave Lake Fryxell and be dropped of at Lake Bonney. We'll spend a few hours there and then be picked back up and come home to Fryxell. If we can hike to a site and get back to camp within a day we'll do that. We try to only schedule helos for long distances.

A: Besides the helicopters and our feet, we have an ATV that we're only allowed to drive on the lake ice. We do that to minimize the impact we have on the landscape and keep it as prestine as possilbe.

K: The work we're doing here is part of a larger effort to monitor and record climate data in a variety of environments over a long period of time. The project is called the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Project and has been going on in the Dry Valleys since the early 1990s. Some of the data we're collecting from the streams is used with data collected from the glaciers and lakes to form a mass balance calculation. This calculation helps us to see how much melt there is and where melt water from the glaciers is going. The other part of what we're doing is monitoring the water quality of the streams and seeing the effect it has on bioligical communities in the streambeds and lakes. What happens in any given year isn't what we're looking for, we're more interested in trends.

B: Here's a picture of a mummified seal. :)

Unfortunately, this will have to be my last email to answer your questions. I've only got a little more time left in the Valleys, and since the weather has warmed up and streams are flowing I'll have even less free time. You've had some great questions! I'll still be trying to send updates for the webpage so if you're curious about what's going on you can look there. :)

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Seth Davidson

Return to Seth's 2007-08 journal.

http://wy.water.usgs.gov/projects/antarctica/htms/QandA.htm 11/28/07 1029 kmiller