Antarctica (48 page)

Knots:
a nautical measure of speed for winds or ship travel. One knot is equivalent to 1.85 kmph.

Mactown:
a nickname for McMurdo Station, the US headquarters in Antarctica.

Mattrack:
a strange-looking Antarctic vehicle that resembles a pick-up truck but has triangular wheels with caterpillar tracks that grip on to sea ice.

Medevac: contraction of‘medical evacuation':
an emergency flight out for someone who is gravely ill or injured.

Ob Hill:
Observation Hill, a volcanic cinder cone overlooking McMurdo Station.

Pack or pack ice:
tightly packed sea ice.

Sastrugi (sing. sastruga):
wave-like ridges of snow built up by the wind.

Scott tent:
pyramid-shaped tent based on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's original design, usually intended to accommodate two people plus a stove for cooking.

Sea ice:
frozen ocean, usually much thinner and more fragile than land ice.

Skidoo:
a common means of individual transportation on snow, which looks like a motorbike on skis. It can also be used to tow sledges.

Snow dozer:
like a bulldozer, but for snow.

300 Club:
to belong to this, you need to have passed, naked, through a temperature change of 300°F (149°C). Typically, you start in a sauna at 200°F (93°C) before going outside wearing only bunny boots and a mask and walking a set distance in -100°F (-73°C). This is only possible while wintering in the coldest parts of the continent—principally the South Pole—and it's a very exclusive club.

‘Toast':
Antarctic slang for the mental instability that affects most people who spend the winter there, as in ‘going toast' or being ‘toasty'.

Twin Otter (or ‘Otter'):
a twin-engine, propeller aircraft famous for its rugged construction, reliability and ability to take off and land on short runways. Designed for remote environments, Twin Otters can be equipped with skis or wheels, and can get into Antarctic field sites that larger planes only dream of.

Winter-over:
to spend the entire winter on the continent.

Introduction

1.
https://www.comnap.aq/facilities/antarctic_stations

2. Jonathan L. Bamber, Riccardo E. M. Riva, Bert L. A. Vermeersen and Anne M. LeBroq, ‘Reassessment of the Potential Sea-Level Rise from a Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet',
Science,
vol. 324, 2009, pp. 901–3.

 

1. Welcome to Mactown

1. This vehicle has its name ‘Ivan the Terra Bus' stencilled on the side. Nobody in Antarctica seems to be able to resist puns.

2. Huntford,
Race to the South Pole,
p. 39.

3.
http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=OPP

4. Sam has an excellent website describing his work at
http://www. bowserlab.org/antarctica/

5. There's a spectacular, though disturbing, BBC video of ribbon worms feeding on a dead seal in McMurdo Sound:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8378000/8378512.stm

6. Named after the great Australian scientist and explorer Douglas Mawson.

7. Stephanie B. Suhr, Stephen P. Alexander, Andrew J. Gooday, David W Pond and Samuel S. Bowser, ‘Trophic modes of large Antarctic foraminifera: roles of carnivory, omnivory, and detritivory',
Marine Ecology Progress Series,
vol. 371, 2008, pp. 155–64.

8. From the US Antarctic Program newspaper, the
Antarctic Sun,
available at
http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=1946

9. You can hear some of these sounds here:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/
about-antarctica/fact-files/animals/sounds-of-antarctic-wildlife

10. K. M. Proffitt, J. J. Rotella and R. A. Garrott, ‘Effects of pup age, maternal age, and birth date on pre-weaning survival rates of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica',
Oikos,
vol. 119, 2010, pp. 1255–64.

11. K. M. Proffitt, R. A. Garrott and J. J. Rotella, ‘Long-term evaluation of body mass at weaning and postweaning survival rates of Weddell seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica',
Marine Mammal Science,
vol. 24, 2008, pp. 677–89.

12. Gillian Louise Hadley,
Recruitment Probabilities and Reproductive Costs for Weddell Seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica,
Ph.D. Thesis, Montana State University, Montana, April 2006. Available at:
http://etd.lib.montana
. edu/etd/2006/hadley/HadleyG0506.pdf. See also Kelly Michelle Proffitt,
Mass Dynamics of Weddell Seals in Erebus Bay, Antarctica,
Ph.D. Thesis, Montana State University, Montana, March 2008. Available at
http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2008/proffitt/ProffittK0508.pdf

 

2. The March of the Penguins

1. David has an excellent website describing his penguin work, at
http://www.penguinscience.com/

2. The letter B signifies that the berg broke off between 90°W and 180°W it was the fifteenth named that year, and it was called ‘a' because the original B15 then broke up into fragments of which this one was the largest.

3. Riffenburgh,
Nimrod,
p. 25.

4. Ibid., p. 226.

5. Ibid., p. 226.

6. Ibid., p. 260.

7. Ibid., p. 107.

8. One website offered a reward for anyone who could track this original advert down. You can follow the results here:
http://www.antarctic-circle.org/advert.htm

9. Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
The Worst Journey in the World,
p. 281.

10. Ibid., p. 240.

11. Ibid., p. 246.

12. Ibid., p. 242.

13. Ibid., p. 251.

14. C.W. Parsons,
Zoology,
vol. 4, 1934, p. 253. See also Gabrielle Walker, ‘The Emperor's Eggs',
New Scientist,
17 April 1999, p. 42.

15. Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
The Worst Journey in the World,
p. 234.

16. Ibid., p. 274.

17. P. J. Ponganis, T. K. Stockard, J. U. Meir, C. L. Williams, K.V. Ponganis, R. P. van Dam and R. Howard, ‘Returning on empty: extreme blood O2 depletion underlies dive capacity of emperor penguins',
Journal of Experimental Biology,
vol. 210, 2007, pp. 4279–85.

18. Frenchman Guillaume Dargaud wrote a lovely review of his contrasting experiences of alcohol at McMurdo and DDU for the website Big Dead Place:
http://www.bigdeadplace.com/alcoholreview.html

19. C. Gilbert, Y. Le Maho, M. Perret and A. Ancel, ‘Body temperature changes induced by huddling in breeding male emperor penguins”
American Journal of Physiology,
vol. 292, 2007, pp. 176–85.

20. Unlike for seals, the researchers had discovered that flipper tags impeded the penguins so did not use them: Claire Saraux et al., ‘Reliability of flipper-banded penguins as indicators of climate change',
Nature,
vol. 469, 13 January 2011, pp. 203–6.

21. C. Gilbert, G. Robertson, I. Le Maho, Y. Naito and A. Ancel, ‘Huddling behavior in emperor penguins: Dynamics of huddling',
Physiology & Behaviour,
vol. 88, 2006, pp. 479–88.

22. C. Gilbert, S. Blanc, Y. Le Maho and A. Ancel, ‘Energy saving process in huddling emperor penguins: From experiments to theory',
Journal of Experimental Biology,
vol. 211, 2007, pp. 1-8.

23. Mawson,
Home of the Blizzard,
p. 77.

24. Ibid., p. 83.

25. Riffenburgh,
Race with Death,
p. 71.

26. Ibid., p. 118.

27. Ibid., p. 141.

28. To be safe, Thierry told me, they never keep a captive animal under the lowest weight they have measured in a wild male, which is 3.3 kg. If any bird hit that weight, even if they weren't moving about and digesting proteins, they got their freedom.

29. Thierry and his group have since discovered that corticosterone is indeed key. See M. Spee, L. Marchal, A. M. Thierry, O. Chastel, M. Enstipp, Y. Le Maho, M. Beaulieu and T. Raclot, ‘Exogenous corticosterone mimics a late fasting stage in captive Adélie penguins
(Pygoscelis adeliae)', American Journal of Physiology: AJP Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology,
vol. 300, 2011, pp. R1241–9.

30. Olivier and his colleagues have since confirmed this. See Aurelie Goutte, Marion Kriloff, Henri Weimerskirch and Olivier Chastel, ‘Why do some adult birds skip breeding? A hormonal investigation in a long-lived bird',
Biol. Lett.
vol.7, 2011, pp. 790–2; A. Goutte, E. Antoine, H. Weimerskirch, and O. Chastel, ‘Age and the timing of breeding in a long-lived bird: a role for stress hormones?'
Funct. Ecol.
vol. 24, 2010, pp. 1007–16; F. Angelier, B. Moe, H. Weimerskirch and O. Chastel, ‘Age-specific reproductive success in a long-lived bird: do older parents resist stress better?',
Journal of Animal Ecology,
vol. 76, 2007, pp. 1181–91.

 

3. Mars on Earth

1. There is a nice short summary of the evidence for water on Mars together with the latest tantalising findings suggesting that there could even have been liquid water there in the geologically recent past. Richard Kerr, ‘A Roller-Coaster Plunge Into Martian Water—and Life?',
Science
, vol. 330, no. 6011, 17 December 2010, p. 1617.

2. Gabrielle Walker, ‘Antarctic Landscape is Testbed for Mars',
New Scientist,
17 April 1999, p. 48.

3.
http://geology.cwru.edu/~ansmet/

4. Cassidy,
Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica,
pp. 64–7.

5. In May 2011, Ralph's University, Case Western Reserve, awarded John an honorary doctorate. His friends have now taken to calling him ‘Dr Johnny Alpine'.

6. Gabrielle Walker,‘Meteorite Heaven',
New Scientist,
17 April 1999, p. 30.

7. Cassidy,
Meteorites, Ice and Antarctica,
p. 147.

8.
http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/lmc/F2%20ALHA81005.pdf

9.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/marslife/slide_12.html

10. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has an excellent website about the Martian meteorites at:
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/index.html

11. Sean C. Solomon et al., ‘New Perspectives on Ancient Mars',
Science,
vol. 307, 25 February 2005, no. 5713, pp. 1214–20.

12. D. S. McKay et al., ‘Search for Past Life on Mars: Possible Relic Biogenic Activity in Martian Meteorite ALH84001',
Science,
vol. 273, no. 5277, 16 August 1996.

13.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/snc/clinton.html

14.
http://people.bu.edu/marchant/

15. D. R. Marchant and J. W Head, ‘Antarctic Dry Valleys: Microclimate zonation, variable geomorphic processes, and implications for assessing climate change on Mars',
Icarus,
vol. 192, 2007, pp. 187–222.

16. The astronauts named part of the landing site ‘Head Valley' in Jim's honour. See the Apollo 15 flight journal at
http://history.nasa.gov/ap15fj/20day10_science.htm

17. J. S. Levy, J. W. Head, D. R. Marchant, J. L. Dickson and G. A. Morgan, ‘Geologically recent gully-polygon relationships on Mars: Insights from the Antarctic Dry Valleys on the roles of permafrost, microclimates, and water sources for surface flow',
Icarus,
vol. 201, 2009, pp. 113–26; J. S. Levy, J. W Head and D. R. Marchant, ‘Cold and Dry Processes in the Martian Arctic: Geomorphic Observations at the Phoenix Landing Site and Comparisons with Terrestrial Cold Desert Landforms',
Geophysical Research Letters,
vol. 36, 2009, p. L21203.

18. D. E. Sugden, D.R. Marchant, N. Potter, R.A. Souchez, G. H. Denton, C. C. Swisher, and J. L. Tison, ‘Preservation of Miocene Glacier Ice in East Antarctica',
Nature,
vol. 376, 1995, pp. 412–14.

 

4. The South Pole

1. Huntford,
Race for the South Pole,
p. 184.

2. Cherry-Garrard,
The Worst Journey in the World,
p. 525.

3. There are two excellent websites about South Pole station.
http://www.southpolestation.com/
is especially good on ‘trivia', including stories about past occupants of the station. The official National Science Foundation site is also full of great images and videos, including an excellent virtual tour of the new station:
http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/livingsouthpole/index.jsp

4. Huntford,
Shackleton,
p. 408.

5.
http://www.polarconservation.org/information/evacuations/2GG2-russian

6. Johnson,
Big Dead Place,
p. 78.

7. Martin Pomerantz was an American scientist who realised the potential of the South Pole for astronomy, back in the 1960s.

8. A. A. Stark, C. L. Martin, W. M. Walsh, K. Xiao, A. P. Lane and C. K. Walker, ‘Gas Density, Stability, and Starbursts near the Inner Lindblad Resonance of the Milky Way',
Astrophysical Journal Letters,
vol. 614, 2004, pp. L41–4.

9. There is a superb video construction of this, based on Tony Stark's work, at
http://easylink.playstream.com/nsf/video/milky_way.rm

10. At first they made only hydrogen and helium, but then these elements were processed through generations of stars to create the suite of complex elements that make up humans.

11. Jeff Peterson, ‘Universe in the Balance',
New Scientist,
16 December 2000, pp. 26–9.

12.
http://www.amanda.uci.edu/collaboration.html

13.
http://icecube.wisc.edu/

14. Luckily for us, and everything else made of atoms, neutrons stay intact when they are bound inside atoms.

15. Both men have nonetheless documented their many seasons in websites. Robert's in particular shows some truly breathtaking images. For Robert's page see
http://www.antarctic-adventures.de/
and for Steffen's,
http://www.adventure-antarctica.de/

16. Being a telescope nanny means dressing and undressing many times a day. For making your commute, you start with a basic layer of thermal T-shirt and long johns. Perhaps add long trousers before pulling on your thermally insulated Carhartt overalls, usually in a sickly mustard shade. A thick fleece jacket comes next, followed by the trusty green polar parka. You'll need a hat and balaclava to go under your parka hood. And everyone adds their own little touches. Robert Schwarz improvised a rubber mask and tube, bowdlerised from the fire-breathing apparatus, which sat under his balaclava. It made him look like an android, but it stopped his breath from fogging up his goggles.