Air NZ Blog #4 - Ash

Kia ora!

Space: the final frontier. To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Hmmm, what’s all this about, I thought you were in Antarctica?, I hear you say. Well, let me explain how this all fits together.

Each week we have Tech Talks where scientists present their projects and what they plan to achieve whilst down here. Last week I saw a flyer for a Tech Talk at McMurdo which included robots, space travel, submarines and search for extra-terrestrial life. How could I resist? What a combo!!!

The presentation was about the ARTEMIS project by Britney Schmidt, an assistant professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. She is the principal investigator on a NASA-funded astrobiology project being supported by the National Science Foundation through the US Antarctic Program.

This involves the use of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to explore under the sea ice. AUV is a fancy name for an underwater robotic submarine, which will be tethered and controlled by up to 15km of fibre optic cable. The team plan to use Antarctica as a testing ground for their submarine before sending a modified version of it to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon to search for life under its frozen ice cap.

Exciting stuff, but tell them they are dreaming I hear you say. Well it wasn’t that long ago that the Dry Valleys here in Antarctica were being used as testing grounds prior to unmanned exploratory vehicles from NASA leaving for Mars. The Dry Valleys are the closest destination on Earth that matched the expected conditions on Mars. There are now four automated motor vehicles on Mars and maybe in the not too distant future an AUV will be exploring Europa.

The ANDRILL project carries on with no signs of alien life forms and it doesn’t seem to quite have the same excitement as ARTEMIS! However I did unexpectedly get an insight into my childhood dream of becoming an archaeologist. The two 40ft shipping containers in which we will be returning the drilling rig and mast back to New Zealand each have a canvas roof cover. This allows a crane to get the extremely heavy parts in and out of the container. About five years ago one of the canvas covers developed a rip. With the extreme weather here the rip has now transformed itself into a totally open top container. This has become the perfect receptacle for any windblown snow that may have been in the area, completely burying all the stored floats, 44 gallon drums, scaffolding, doors and refrigeration panels that were stored inside the container. It seemed like an archaeological dig in that you wouldn’t know what you were extracting out of the snow until it lay at your feet. I could even see the layers in the snow showing the seasonal changes. Layer upon layer until unearthing the solid melt ice at bottom. A very physical job over two days and it certainly left me able to sleep very well at night.

JR, the engineer from Goughs arrived on Wednesday and I’ve been helping him with the strip down of the drilling rig and mast. We have found that a large hammer and pipe extension on the end of a swing bar aids in the removal of the frozen nuts and pipes we’ve encountered. Goughs built the ANDRILL platform and drill rig shed and JR has also being involved with the drilling program on the McMurdo Ice Shelf and so is a wealth of information about what we need to do to get it back to New Zealand.

Today we had the excitement of watching the All Blacks play in the rugby final. Previously we had listened to the Radio Sport broadcast for the quarterfinal and then for the semi we endured watching pixelated patches of colour moving about the screen. How great was it to watch the final in all its glory! A brilliant turnout had almost everybody crammed into one room watching and willing the All Blacks to victory. Well done to the All Blacks and many thanks to the American match commentators who provided many moments of hilarity during the game.

We also were given a tour of the ice core laboratory by Inga Smith from the K131 event team. Two metre lengths of ice cores are brought in from the field and the scientists then obtain samples from along the entire length and analyse them using cross polarised light filters to ascertain the ice crystal structure. This detailed analysis shows how fast the sea ice is growing or receding and the implications of a warming ocean, which can be used as an advance warning for the potential loss of the polar ice cap. Think of it as the canary in the coal mine – fingers crossed for good results.