A View from Above of the Bottom of the Earth

Look at the Antarctic from above! This image, from the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica is of Antarctica--anyone want to guess what we are looking at? The entire continent except the South Pole is covered and you can zoom in and out of various locations. For a map nut, it doesn't get any more exciting than this.

Log from Cape Royds, or, More Penguins! and Whales!

David Ainley gave an overview of his work with Adelie penguins at Cape Royds in an earlier blog (below) and now he's generously sharing the day to day (including Thanksgiving!) and the science of his life on the ice.

We began this 12th year leaving the USA on 4 Nov, arriving in Christchurch NZ on 6 Nov and then, after a few days of weather delay, arriving at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, on 11 Nov. While in McMurdo we attended courses on survival in extreme conditions, proper conduct in specially protected areas, and the proper disposal/recycling of no-longer-need materials (cans, bottles, paper, metal, etc). McMurdo saves for recycling about 80% of its refuse (the remainder goes in a landfill in the USA). During this period, too, we sorted through our field gear and acquired our camping gear from the Berg Field Center. We had to do this for 3 camps, all on Ross Island, at Cape Crozier (a hut there), Cape Bird (a hut), and Cape Royds (a tent). We had at least a ton of stuff, including food.

17 November 2007

Two of us, Jean Pennycook (science teacher) and I, arrived at Cape Royds, landing by helicopter chocked full of food boxes, camping equipment, and scientific apparatus. Back in the cargo portion of the helo, there was just enough space for the two of us to sit. After off-loading the helo, it flew away leaving us to carry a myriad of boxes and stuff to the platform tent (RacTent) that will be our headquarters. We spent the next several hours unpacking and laying out the tent according to what we considered to be the most efficient use of the small space (10’ X 16’).   

Our camp, close-up (top), and its location looking to the south with fast ice in Backdoor Bay. Cape Barne forms the other shore of the Bay.

After a bit of that sort of activity, I went off to see how the

penguins were doing in this summer of 2007-08. This season most of

McMurdo Sound is covered only by pack ice. Thus, when the wind is

blowing, as it is now, from Cape Royds toward the north for 20 km it is

free of sea ice. To the south, the Sound is covered by a continuous

sheet of ice --- fast ice.

Here at Royds at its outer sections, it is 2

meters thick; farther south it is 8 m thick. Farther south they are now

landing very large cargo airplanes on the sea ice. In any case, the

penguins should be happy with their easy access to the open waters at

Cape Royds.   

Based on counts that I made of some ‘reference’ subcolonies, there is exactly the same number of penguins here as there were on this date last year, 45 penguins (25 nests) in one group and 112 (69 nests) in the other. About 1/3 of nests had an egg, so the penguins must just now be beginning the period of peak egg-laying. Almost all the penguins in this colony should lay their eggs over a 1-12 day period, beginning a couple of days ago.

20 November 2007

We’ve now got our stuff set up, including the weighbridge. This is an apparatus that identifies penguins (from the computer chip we inject under their skin) when they walk through a hoop antenna, and at the same time records their body weight. They have to walk through this apparatus because a fence, surrounding the nests of about 80 pairs, has just one opening and in this opening is the weighbridge. Most of these penguins remember this setup from previous years, and those that are new to it watch the others. Quickly, they follow along. The data from this apparatus are stored in a small computer that is contained in a tent. This year I had a bit of a problem with the solar regulator for this system, but folks from the CommShop in McMurdo helped me to replace it. I owe them BIG TIME!

This is a PIT (passively interrogated transponder) and the needle used to inject it under the skin of penguins (and dogs and cats).

A fence encircles two groups totaling about 80 nests. A computer is in the tent, powered by the solar panels to the right. The weighbridge is to the left of the tent.

This penguin is standing on the scale while it investigates the antenna hoop that it just walked through. The item to the left is a photocell that, working with another on the other side of the antenna, turns the system on or off depending on which one got tripped first by the penguin.

The weighbridge allows us to gather information that would have been unheard of just 15 years ago. One can reliably capture a penguin only once; the second time the penguin has its suspicions and is wary. Thus, once we inject the PIT tag we can then determine its weight as it changes over the season, and also the weight of the food that it fed to its chick(s), by subtracting its departure weight from its arrival weight on each visit to the nest. We’ve found that this amount of food varies depending a several things, including the size of the colony in which the penguin lives. At Royds, a tiny colony, parents bring back more food more often than at Cape Crozier, a large colony, where there is a great deal of competition for food. Little did we know when we started out!!

23 November 2007

Well, let’s see, it was chicken and oriental rice for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday eve, and a rousing blizzard outside. Only in the evening, though. As I said earlier, there is a lot of open water in McMurdo Sound this spring, and the reason is related to the frequent blasts of wind that blow the ice away. In fact we had only one period of maybe 6 hours when it’s been calm, thus far. Peak wind so far has been around 50 knots.

Here's the view from the front window of the RacTent, looking west toward Victoria Land (Antarctic continent). The mountains (Royal Society Range) are about 50 miles away. McMurdo Sound is the flat stretch from here, the shore of Ross Island, to the yonder mountainous shore in the distance. The silver-gray area is open water; the dull white in the nearer area is the outer portion of the McMurdo Sound fast ice, the edge being about 1 km away.

So, the penguins must be happy having the sea this close so early in the breeding season. They are not expecting open water now. In fact, their breeding strategy is set up to cope with treks over ice by the females, after they lay the eggs. The males have put on enough fat to sit waiting for about two weeks for the female to return. I’ve already seen several nest reliefs, as well as birds coming back and the mate not wanting to get off the eggs. Their hormones are elevated, which makes them want to sit as long as they are not hungry.

I’ve encountered about 80 banded, know-age birds thus far. All had hatched and were originally banded at Royds, except one, a male who originated from Cape Crozier. Of those 80, about 50 are the owners of a nest with eggs, laid by them or their partner. That’s a record for Royds, breaking last year’s record of 30 nests of banded birds. The reason such a high proportion of banded birds so far have eggs, and more are likely coming in the next couple of days, is that the population has aged. All the banded birds are 7 years old or older. Oldest, of the banded ones, is 13 years. There are no younger ones because in the past 5 years, when McMurdo Sound was covered its length by fast ice (more later on that), they were discouraged from coming (walking) this far. Many went only as far as Cape Bird out at the northern edge of McMurdo Sound, where they found a nest site near to open water.

In any case, the peak of laying has now happened here at Royds. Mostly there are just single birds on nests, happily incubating their eggs. Their partners have gone off to sea to eat. The colony is very quiet.

26 November 2007

I guess I might as well show you, the reader of this, what the view is in the other direction, though it’s not from the RacTent, which is hiding behind a hill and snow drift thus to offer a bit of protection from the southerly blasts. So, to see to the east takes a bit of a walk, and one might as well walk a bit farther for the view below:

View from Cape Royds looking east. Mr. Erebus, a quietly active volcano (it has a bubbly lava lake) is about 13,000 ft. high. The Cape is actually a series of lava floes that project out into the sea. The penguins here are nesting on an outcrop of columnar basalt that was worn down by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum (25000 to 12000 years ago). The structure in the middle ground is much more recent: Shackleton's hut in the 1909-11 expecition.

Two days ago we saw the first whales of the season. Jean was standing on the ice at Black Sand Beach, and 9 Emperor Penguins popped out of the water right by her. A few seconds later she saw some killer whales not too far off. A bit later, in the same vicinity, the  penguins were still standing by the ice edge and the killer whales were hanging out a few hundred meters farther out. Judging from their size, I’d say they were the ‘type-B’ killer whales, the ones that prey mostly on warm-blooded creatures like seals. There were 9 of them, a male, 5 females and 2 calves. They’re bigger than the more common (in these parts) ‘type-C’ killer whales, which eat mostly fish.

We also saw, later, 3 minke whales, which were breaching not too far off our shores. This is a bit earlier than we’ve seen them in other years, by about a week. I’m glad the minke whales are here and not out where the Japanese whalers can get them. I heard that even the U.S. has asked the Japanese whalers to cease their ‘scientific’ take this year. Not just minke whales are the Japanese after now, but humpbacks as well. That was after I heard the Japanese asking the New Zealanders and Australians not to allow the Sea Shepherd Society vessel to come into port in their countries. Last season, bless their hearts, the Sea Shepherd harassed the whalers well. I wonder what the Japanese are threatening: not to buy the lamb and lumber of NZ or to raise the price on Toyotas? I’m amazed at the U.S. statement. While the U.S. scientists have been arguing against the Japanese whaling for some time, the higher government has been silent, perhaps not wanting to disrupt the ‘coalition’ of Iraqi forces.

In any case, when the minke whales arrive in larger numbers, and the type-C killer whales, too, we can expect the penguins to have more difficulty finding food. These whales go after the same food as the penguins, and take much more of it in one gulp! When the whales are around, the penguin foraging trips are longer, and the penguins have to dive deeper. The penguins switch, as well, at that time from eating mostly krill to eating fish. It’s a very interesting interaction that surprised us when we discovered it. Without the weighbridge, we would not have detected the changes in foraging trip duration. If this were not part of the Ross Sea, either, we would not have detected this, as the Ross Sea is the last ocean on Earth where all the parts are still in full (well almost full) force and all processes are functioning as they have for millennia. Elsewhere the whales and fish have been wiped clear. But more on that later…..

Two minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales and a  denizen of the Antarctic pack ice, off Cape Royds

Antarctica is for Dreamers and Readers

World Hum is a marvelous website devoted to travel writing. Editor Jim Benning interviewed me yesterday--it was a fun conversation--about the Explorer sinking and about Antarctica: Life on the Ice. Here is the World Hum interview.

They have lots of wonderful material at World Hum, and in their dispatches they published Jason Anthony writing about the Antarctic: "A Brief and Awkward Tour of the End of the Earth." This essay was selected for Best American Travel Writing, 2007.

Here is the opening of Jason's "AGO 1" from Antarctica: Life on the Ice:

November, 2000: After five seasons of fairly civilized Antarctic work, I took on a ominous job offered to me at the end of the polar summer by a drunken friend. Kip reeled across the floor of McMurdo Station’s darkened carpenter shop during its massive end-of-season party in February and shouted a slurred version of the question we all ask at the end of an Antarctic contract: “Hey man, are you coming back next year?” When I shrugged the shrug of the restless, he yelled “You should come back and work for AGO next year. It’s crazy!” AGO (pronounced like the end of “Winnebago”) is the Automated Geophysical Observatory program, the maintenance of which demands some of the most notorious work in the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). Kip had graduated to management, and would be doing the hiring.

Eight months later, I was back in McMurdo preparing to journey outward

with a few others to a string of isolated motes across the top of the

godforsaken East Antarctic ice cap. Bella, the lead groomer, and I

would be joining engineers Joe and Jack on journeys to AGO 1, AGO 4,

and AGO 5. Another team would be flying out to 2, 3, and 6. East

Antarctica is the coldest and most inaccessible geography on Earth, a

plateau of ice ranging from one to three miles deep, larger than the

United States and, except for a handful of people in government-issued

parkas, empty of land and life.

Buy the book to read more!

Spirit of Shackleton

The cruise ship Explorer that sunk in Antarctic waters has gotten a lot of attention. Those aboard were on a trip in the "Spirit of Shackleton." They were

probably thinking of his 1914 Endurance expedition, not the trip with

Scott in 1901 when he was sent home with scurvy. During the Endurance

expedition--the Antarctic adventure with more amazing plot twists than

any before or since--the ship was crushed in the ice. So these tourists

got a real taste of Shackleton's adventure! But it took a lot longer

for Shackleton's crew to be saved--21 waited on Elephant Island for four

and a half months, through an Antarctic winter, while Shackleton set out

over 800 miles of open water to South Georgia Island  where he found

help at a whaling outpost, Stromness Station. The photo here is either of Shackleton's men waving goodbye or welcoming the ship in. The photo is taken by Frank Hurley--if you don't know his photos, go find them. All of Shackleton's men

survived--by keeping busy and singing songs. I wonder if the survivors

of the Explorer sang as they waited to be picked up?

There are a lot of amazing things about this story of the Explorer, and one that has not been explained in any article I've read is how an iceberg can pierce the hull of a ship without the captain being aware of the location of such an iceberg. Icebergs are big. Technology that tells a ship what is where underwater is very sophisticated. If anyone sees information on this--let me know!

The other  amazing  detail is that  help was so close at hand. Several other cruise ships were close enough to quickly pluck everyone from the icy waters. One of those ships was a National Geographic cruise ship. Jon Bowermaster, who contributed a thrilling essay about flying onto the ice to Antarctica: Life on the Ice, was on that ship as a tour guide. He was also using the trip south to drop off supplies for his upcoming Antarctic kayaking expedition. Be sure to look at his posts and the audio descriptions of his trip. Because he was close at hand, Jon has been interviewed by the New York Times, ABC news, and NPR. The article in my local paper from Kingston, NY, the Daily Freeman, celebrates Jon, as he's a local boy:

Quoted from the Freeman:

"Stone Ridge resident and adventure writer Jon Bowermaster was aboard

the National Geographic Endeavor, one of two ships that first responded

to assist the sinking cruise vessel Explorer after it struck ice Friday

morning off the coast of Antarctica, The New York Times reported.

"There was a long line of black rubber Zodiac boats and a handful of

orange lifeboats strung out, and it was very surreal because it was a

very beautiful morning with the sun glistening off the relatively calm

sea," the Times quoted Bowermaster as saying in its Saturday edition.

"And all you could think about was how relieved these people must have

been when they saw these two big ships coming."

According to

Associated Press reports, aside from some mild cases of hypothermia,

there were no injuries among the 154 passengers of the MS Explorer, a

Canadian cruise ship that was retracing the Antarctic route of early

20th century explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Bowermaster, 53, was

touring the Antarctic peninsula aboard the Endeavor as a lecturer,

according to the itinerary on his Web site, and he was scheduled to

return on Friday, Nov. 30.

Bowermaster frequently lectures

locally about his travels. He most recently spoke at Oblong Books in

Rhinebeck on Oct. 27, when he read from his book, "Antarctica: Life on

the Ice" with coauthor Susan Fox Rogers."

I love that they have us co-authoring this collection! Actually is is 20-authored, with one proud editor...