Anna McKee

WAIS Divide Camp at 79.47° S latitude, 112.06° W longitude – high on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Plateau.

The wind finally abated somewhat during the day on Friday. I took another grid walk in the morning – with similar results. The combination of flat light and drifting obscured my way and made an even pace impossible – what an analogy for life. As the wind died, the crud* built in my nose, so my afternoon was fairly quiet. Around 4pm one of the drill handlers found me to say that a visible layer was in the core at approximately 1580 meters and 8,000 years old. We rushed out to the Core Handling area of the arch to look. Everyone was very excited – they didn’t expect to find visible layers. The Danish scientist has been drilling ice in the field for 6 seasons and has never seen a visible layer. Everyone agreed that it looked like a tephra (volcanic) layer. Chemical analysis in the lab will confirm if it is ash, and what volcanic event it came from. When I first looked at the core on the tray, the layer looked like a fracture line, about a millimeter thick. But up close there is a definite grey ochre cast to the layer. Looking at an angle, I could make out a shadow of the layer deep in the ice. I had heard that Scientists are notoriously understated in their reaction to really cool discoveries and even these young graduate students lived up to that reputation. No one was jumping up and down or high fiving. However, their elation was palpable. The day had been difficult and they were tired, but this thin line of dust came as a gift of energy. I remembered drawing an ash layer at the National Ice Core Lab during my first visit in 2008. It had been from the Newell Glacier near the dry valleys in Antarctica. I found the jpeg of the sketch on my computer, and sure enough, in the notes at the corner of the page was “Newell Glacier, approximately 8000 years old”. It deepened my connection to this place and the core, and yes, I am very excited about it.

*Crud or McMurdo Crud – a low level cold that is a right of passage for almost every newcomer on the ice. It is extremely difficult to avoid, with dry air, and lots of people crowded into small overheated spaces.

WAIS Divide Camp at 79.47°S latitude, 112.06°W longitude – high on the West
Antarctic Ice Sheet Plateau.
Wind speed 18-23knots, temp -18 degrees C, 1 mile visibility.
This morning I noticed very unusual drifting patterns created by footsteps. The steps compact the snow and over time the wind blows away the surrounding snow leaving these beautiful sculpted mounds, distinct from the surrounding drifts. These are marks made by all of us shuttling to and fro with our boots and machines.
At the center of this camp, it seems we are creating an enormous impact to this space, until I remember our flight, seeing hours of white drift patterns in a large sea. We are a small boat, barely visible at 20,000 ft. Within a few decades, snowfall will have entombed it all; my footsteps stretched out by the moving ice.
I thought to photograph these marks, but Anais suggested that I might try to make some patterns myself. After bundling up, I walked out into a space that wouldn’t be plowed and tried to orient myself to stamp out a grid pattern. I began by orienting with the mile marker flags to the north, west and south, used to gauge the cloud ceiling for aviation. I began facing north, stomping out 50 paces and then turned south, counting out. Between the light and my goggles, I found it difficult to make out which of the groups of flags were west, but oriented with the wind and continued. I tried to turn 90 degrees each time, stamping out equal paces, until I had marked out a rough rectilinear maze into the center. As I followed the path back out, the way was sometimes clear, sometimes erased by the wind. I was struck by the powerful metaphor of this activity, my life in a series of paces.
This experience was amplified by the distinct fear I carry about being stuck in a white-out. I know it can come up quickly, and the few hundred yards to the nearest structure would become unreachable. The radio in my pocket reassured my rational mind. But my hind brain still registered fear. Even with structures and flags defining the spaces, the white dominates, creating little ghosts in the edges of my mind.

WAIS Divide Camp at 79.47S latitude, 112.06W longitude
Wednesday, December 16th
Hi Everybody,
Today the wind picked up and I am now experiencing conditions unlike I have
ever felt before. The wind is at about 20knots, so the temperature feels
much colder. I must cover all of myself in order to stay outside for more
than a few minutes. Gloves I have been wearing until now do not suffice and
I am digging for more layers in my bags. I am really in love with my Big
Red (the Big Red is our high loft extreme weather jacket). Today I spent a
bit of time in and around “The Arch”
The reason that this camp exists is to retrieve 3400 meters of ice from the
enormous ice sheet of West Antarctica. Numerous scientists and institutions
in the U.S. will receive samples of the ice and test it for a variety of
isotopes, gases, dusts, elements and biological materials. This ice needs
to be kept as intact and cold as possible. The drill needs to be aligned
within millimeters and be able to cut through ice that is well under
freezing.
I thought I had an idea of the complexity of this before coming here, but
watching the procedure in the Drill Arch gave me a much better impression of
the level of engineering and technology behind this feat. The arch is
divided into two parts, the drilling area and the core processing area. They
are kept separate for safety and to keep the ice cold. Once the ice is
pulled up (the drill is now at 1544 meters and counting), it is pushed
through a hole in the wall into the processing area that is maintained at
-25degrees C. During all parts of the procedure, the ice is cradled in
trays to minimize the risk of fracture. The transfer is like a birth.
Because I am here early in the drill season, each piece of ice that comes up
is like a baby, everyone looking, as if to count fingers and toes. In
reality, they look to see the condition of the ice and to see how the drill
is cutting – to know if anything needs to be tweaked.
The drill was redesigned this year to be able to cut longer lengths each
trip down. Since it takes approximately 40 minutes to travel to current
cutting depth, I understand why they want to optimize the amount retrieved
at each pass.
In the morning I sketched in the arch, mostly to observe the process. The
first sketch was awkward, due to my bundling up and the unfamiliarity of it
all. In the afternoon, I worked in the ramp leading to the back entrance of
the arch with a bit more success, though the wind chased me inside too
quickly. The drifting is beautiful and the sky is bright with blue patches.
Tomorrow, I hope to go out to the backlit snow pit. Send warm thoughts
south!

This post is coming to you through a low bandwidth GOES satellite, in plain
text email, set up by my very clever niece Christine (thanks!!)
Monday, December 14th – I flew in a LC-130 or “Herc” to the WAIS Divide Camp
at 79.47S latitude, 112.06W longitude – high on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Plateau. It was an evening flight and I was able to sit in the cockpit much
of the way. For 3 and 1/2 hours, we cruised above a flat white mass.
Looking down, at first it all seemed even and monotonous. But the light
caught both clouds and surface textures to create patterns and textures,
occasionally bouncing back bright reflections. It was similar to flying
across an ocean, with even wave patterns. Once, I thought I saw an ice
stream in the sheet. An ice sheet is an area of the ice sheet that moves
more quickly than the surrounding mass, looking a bit like a river cutting
across a plain.
I was warmly welcomed by the camp, many of whom came out to meet my plane.
There was a bit of time to get leftovers from the chef (who, by the way, is
rumored to be the best chef in Antarctica) and a quick tour of the camp by
ice core handler Peter Neff, a graduate student at the University of
Washington. Then off to bed, the first night in a structure called a Polar
Haven, which is affectionately known as “the oven”.
Today I mostly settled in, though I did help Yvonne, our medical staff,
whose duties include weather relay to McMurdo. She set off a weather
balloon to determine cloud ceiling. It is elegant, simple science. A
balloon is filled with a specific weight of (30gm) Helium, released into the
sky and timed until it disappears. On a snow runway, the plane can’t land
safely if visibility is less than 1000 feet, so this information is critical
to prevent a turn around, which wastes fuel and everyone’s time.
The camp is laid out like a small village, with the Drill Arch and
generators out on the edge of town. I will describe the drilling complex in
more detail in my next post. The community space is a series of structures,
some old military James ways, others newer versions of rac-tents (fabric and
steel structures). There are separate heated tents for science, operations,
medical, a spacious galley and a combo recreation tent and shower module.
There is even a laundry machine. Most of these folks are here for 2 months,
doing very cold, laborious work, so laundry is a necessity.
On the edge of town is a small tent suburb, laid out in a grid with a map in
case of condition one (white out) weather. Though I was given a mountain
tent at McMurdo, two of the science team left today, so I moved into one of
the more spacious, warm tents with an insulated floor – cushy. I am looking
forward to snuggling into my own space after sharing sleeping quarters in
McMurdo.
It is a bit cold in the evening hours, when the sun is at its lowest point,
but happily, the sun is high in the morning and the tents become warm and
toasty. I will take a hot water bottle to bed with me (not as nice as my
husband, but it will have to suffice) to pre-heat the sleeping bag. Tomorrow
will be an active day. More then!