February 1, 2010

Vessel

The resupply vessel arrived this Monday via Port Hueneme, CA, USA to Lytellton, NZ to McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The vessel has supplies for the next year. It returns to the USA with among other things waste generated on station and in field camps. This includes but is not limited to food waste (ends up being composted), recyclables (plastics, aluminum cans, bottles, metals), human waste (from field camps), hazardous waste, items to be auctioned off, etc. It actually goes back to Port Hueneme and Washington. Approximately 65% of waste is recycled from the station.

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Vessel arrival signals dramatic changes int town. NZ Army and US Navy Chaps are brought in to help with unloading/loading the vessel of millvans. Certain roads and parts of town have limited access for the large trucks and loaders rumbling through town. This is for safety reasons and to expediate the process. I heard that it is approximately $45,000 for every day that the vessel is in port (not sure what that encompasses/does not encompass). Lots of dust is kicked up with all the vehicular traffic and with the drier conditions. The town also becomes a dry town - no bars are open and no alcoholic beverages are sold in the store while unloading/loading is happening. It usually takes 7-9 days. Large parts of town also go on 24-hr operations with 12-hr worker shifts. I've heard from multiple people that have been here all season, that this is the only time that they lock their doors during the season- I'm guessing with a large surge in people that are here for just a week or two there are security concerns or there has been events in the past that led to this worry. Although I haven't seen anything to say I understand where the concern is. Possibly once they finish or when they first got here and the town was not dry yet...
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Note: This year has been the largest amount of open water in front of the station in many years. The water is not open all the way to the open ocean, but is in front of station and then goes to a slushy-looking, ice floes created by the icebreaker and the tanker and vessel that just arrived. One thing that comes with the open water is more common sightings of whales (meinkes and orcas) and sometimes penguins.
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Vessel outside of Mcmurdo, with Icebreaker in background.


Vessel is just outside of docking in McMurdo.

January 27, 2010

Blood Falls Trip

So, went out on a debris recovery trip to Blood Falls, which is in the Dry Valleys Antarctica Specially Managed Area (ASMA). It is also considered a more strictly managed area or special feature within the ASMA. This is due to the glacial feature of a distinctive red-orange color caused by a saline, iron rich water in the Taylor glacier - from hence its name came. Its more distinct at other times or in other years but you can still see it clearly (as in the picture above).

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I was able to visit this area earlier in the year as part of an environmental audit, but this trip we made to recover some sampling equipment left by a science group. This area is likely to recieve additional protection by being named an Antarctica Specially Protected Area (ASPA) in the near future and the NSF wanted us to remove this old equipment in the area. The science equipment was a stream weir to the south of Blood Falls (and the Taylor glacier) in a stream running adjacent to the glacier.

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Here's just an assortment of pictures from the trip.

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Mummified seal buried in debris near the stream weir.

Mass of icicles dripping off the Rhone Glacier. You can see Calkin Glacier flowing into the valley from the mountainous background and the Taylor Glacier in the valley.

An ice falls coming off the Rhone glacier. Appears to me to be where glacier melt accumulates and flows off glacier. Dirty with sediment blown/deposited in/on glacier.

View of dry valley area from helo.

During our return trip from the Valleys to McMurdo, we got delayed on the ground for 3-4 hours. Although the weather in the Valleys was beautiful - not windy, sunny, warm, weather at McMurdo was stormy - windy and snowing. Thus we were not going to head back until the weather cleared enough. It was even possible we might overnite at Marble Point in the Valleys.
Marble Point is a field camp with buildings and bunks and food - so it would have been no problem, but we got word that the weather cleared and we headed back.

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On the way, the weather was cloudy, but it didn't look horrible. Then we entered this really foggy area and the Viz (that's short for visibility for you who don't know Helo talk- J/K) was horrible. I took the following picture...It is washed out, but the visibility was bad.

The pilot and helo tech did not seem overly concerned, but I'm not sure if that was just the face they put on or if they had the situation completely under control or some of both. But it was a little disconcerting being able to see nothing and having no frames of reference - it probably didn't help that I was sitting facing away from our direction of travel. It cleared quickly though and we made it back without incident.