Science Exhibits and the Antarctic sky

10:15am Monday, 2/13/2012

17°F

Last Antarctica-related post! Four posts in a row. I am going out with a flurry of activity.

There are several neat displays in the main hallway of the lab building (Crary) that I worked in. I realize that I focused on the displays with rocks. My geology background seems to have influenced me….

Exhibit hallway

Petrified wood!

Sign for the petrified wood

Another petrified wood sign

Kenyte (aka Erebus Crystals)

Volcanic bomb from Mount Erebus

Lichens in sandstone

New Yorker cartoon

Here are evening shots from the last couple of nights.

The moon!

Mount Erebus with the sun behind it

I am off to my flight off the continent! I can't believe it's been two months already. This has truly been the adventure of a lifetime. 

The instrument I operated

8:30pm Sunday, 2/12/2012
12°F

The weather has taken a turn today. It is really cold outside! This afternoon it was only a little warmer, a balmy 13°F. This evening I am going to share some photos from the lab I have worked in during the last two months. This is my last night in Antarctica. I have had an amazing time here and I will remember this trip for all of my life. I had several great trips out in the field, but I also spent a lot of time in the lab in the Crary building in McMurdo operating the TOC ("total organic carbon") instrument made by Shimadzu, which my research group uses to measure nonpurgeable organic carbon (NPOS) and total nitrogen (TN). We measure NPOC and TN of the lakes in Taylor Valley and Miers Lake, while we only measure NPOC in the streams because we have to use a different catalyst in the instrument because the streams can have very low concentrations of organic carbon. I analyzed between about 275 and 325 samples this summer. 

The door to the lab I worked,
room 107 on the top level

The hallway where my lab is
located 

Our lab in the Crary building isn't too interesting on the inside (or the outside, for that matter), but I spent a LOT of time there so I thought I should share some photos of it and the instrument I've operated all season.  

The instrument! Meet the Shimadzu TOC Analyzer. The cylindrical
piece on the far left is the auto-sampler, the middle box is the main
instrument that measures organic carbon, and rectangular box on
the right measures total nitrogen

The standards I analyze with every suite of samples to calibrate
the raw data

It is really nice that this instrument has an auto sampler.  The instrument can be set up to analyze 40-70 samples, which includes standards, blanks, and duplicates. Each "run" can take 20 to 48 hours because ever sample takes 20-30 minutes to complete. The actual analysis takes 8-12 minutes because the instrument analyzes each individual sample 3 to 5 times, depending on how well the instrument deems each analysis of an individual sample. 

Water samples for analysis with this instrument are collected in the field in amber glass bottles that have been cleaned and heated in a furnace to destroy any organic material on the bottles. The plastic caps of the sample bottles are cleaned in acid. After collected, the sample water is filtered and a small amount of hydrochloric acid is added to the sample to lower the pH to 2-3.

Auto-sampler with ~70 samples loaded up and in use. The samples are
transferred to 24 mililiter glass vials for analysis  

The needle of the auto-sampler sucking up a sample from a
glass vial

I kind of understand the inner-workings of the instrument. The sample is extracted from a glass vial in the auto-sampler and then it is "pumped" to an 8-port valve, which leads the sample to a glass syringe. In the syringe, the sample is "sparged" for 90 seconds, which simply means that air passes through the sample for 90 seconds. This drives out dissolved inorganic carbon in the sample.

8-port valve (octopus-like apparatus) with the glass
syringe below it

  

Sparging a sample!! This is in the glass syringe.
It was very exciting the first time Kathy and I
got the instrument working and saw it do this.

The sample is next passes through a catalyst in a furnace at about 700°C (1300°F) and the organic carbon is converted to inorganic carbon in the form of carbon dioxide (CO₂) gas. The sample is finally analyzed by ion chromatography.

The furnace! There's a glass tube with catalyst material in it within
the furnace. It is literally red hot!

The instrument is connected to a computer. We have a program for operating the instrument and the auto-sampler. It isn't a very user-friendly program, but it isn't too difficult to use once you get the hang of it. 

A sample run set up and a window open to view the raw data

Raw data. This sample, which is Lyons Creek that is named after
my PhD adviser W. Berry Lyons, had 5 sample injections. The
sample injections are represented by the bumps in the blue line.
The program decided to exclude the first two injections because
they were statistically "off."

Well, that is all I have the energy for tonight. I might try to post again tomorrow about the exhibits in the lab building I worked in and a couple more landscape photos.

I am looking forward to my two full days in Christchurch, New Zealand before I head back to the States. I plan to visit Akaroa for one of my days in Christchurch. My plan is to rent a kayak for a few hours to explore Akaroa Harbor and maybe see some dolphins along with the beautiful harbor. Hopefully I will get some great photos in New Zealand and I'll post some of those when I get back to California as my final post.

The bus route for my day trip to Akaroa

Evening walk and open water

11:20pm Saturday, 2/11/2012
22°F


Today was my second to last full day down here! I can't believe it. These last two months have really flown by. I took some photos on a walk last night and I took some photos in the lab yesterday, all which I would like to post during the next ~48 hours before I leave Antarctica. Since it's so late, I think I shall just post a few photos from my walk last night. These were taken between about 7:30 and 8pm.

The N.B. Palmer getting fuel in McMurdo
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_B._Palmer_(icebreaker))

Looking south (or southwest) from the shores of McMurdo. That is Kathy, my
co-worker. Look at her long shadow!

The beach of McMurdo! I felt the water. It was rather cold. Too bad I forgot to
pack a swimsuit....  

Looking north from the shoreline in front of McMurdo. The hill in the center of the
photo is where we walked to and on the way to that hill is where the first photo
in this post is taken from

Whales from afar

11:00am Friday, 2/10/2012
25°F


It's a little more than two weeks since my last post and I haven't taken any photos until last night. When I was walking out of the lab building yesterday evening after finishing my science duties I happened to glance out at the sea and saw numerous spouts of water, which were neatly back lit because of the time of day (after 10pm). It was like seeing geysers in the sea. The whale activity seemed pretty high to me as there was always a whale spouting somewhere out in the water during the ten minutes I was watching. These were Antarctic minke whales or southern minke whales (Balaenoptera bonaerensis), which I looked up to make sure I had the correct spelling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_minke_whale). I think they like the freshly exposed water in front of McMurdo for a new feeding area that allows for breathing too. 

The first photo I took last night from
right outside of Crary lab. Note how
the spout of water is back lit!

Second photo I took. There turned
out to be several pods of whales
all over the open water last night

Several whales far across the open water near the other edge of the sea ice

The same pod of whales near the opposite edge of the sea ice

A whale exposed and spouting near the closer edge of the sea ice and remnant
spouting on the far side of the open water

Mid range and far spouting

A single whale spouting on the far side of the open water. I included this photo
to show where I was shooting from in McMurdo

Dorm room and icebreaker vessel

7:40am Thursday, 1/26/2012
15°F 


My posts may less interesting and less frequent now as my last three weeks down here may not include another adventure out in the field. Like today, I've decided to share photos of my dorm room and the ice breaker vessel circling around in the sea ice in front of McMurdo.


Dorm Room


My dorm room has two beds and has mostly only been occupied by me. I have heard that rooms of the same size can have a set of bunk beds so that the maximum occupancy can be three people, but thankfully my room isn't like that. With the exception of my first week here and two nights last week, I have had my room all to myself and it's been quite nice. 


The furniture isn't all that exciting, but it serves its purpose. My mattress is really comfortable and I enjoy being next to the window. I still haven't decided if I like sleeping with it open wearing a sleeping mask or sleeping with it closed and waking up to darkness. It is surreal that the sun never sets. I am not sure how one gets used to that.


Right across from my room is the women's restroom for my floor and down the hall is the laundry room. I imagine this is what living in the dorms at a college is like and I have to admit I am not sorry I missed out on years of living like this.

My bed for the last 6 weeks

My closet

Where my shoes live. My toe shoes are on
my feet, which is why they aren't in the lineup

My bag of warm clothes
goodies!

Icebreaker


The icebreaker vessel has arrived and it's clearing the way between the Ross Sea and McMurdo through the Ross Ice Shelf for the cargo vessel that arrives in mid February. The cargo vessel will take away the summer's waste and bring supplies for winter and next summer. It's very strange to see open water out in front of McMurdo and even stranger to see a ship moving around in and disturbing the sea ice.

Its progress- all the open water is new as of its arrival

The icebreaker and Mt. Discovery

Breaking a pathway in the sea ice

Two short videos of Taylor Valley

Taylor Valley from Lake Hoare field camp:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=3036350278112


Flying into Taylor Valley over the Asgard Range from Wright Valley:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=3036542482917

Hiking on Lake Hoare with Amy

12:05am Sunday, 1/22/2012
25°F


After getting back to Lake Hoare field camp after speed sampling the Onyx River on January 17th, Amy and I did some work before setting out for a small adventure on the lake. She went to one of the labs (the instrument lab) to do paperwork involved in tracking radioactive material and I went to the chemistry lab to filter and prep my samples we'd just collected.


Once we got a couple hours of indoors work under our belts, we ventured out onto the lake to retrieve three instruments that Amy and the Limno Team had left in the lake a couple of months ago on behalf of another researcher. These instruments measured temperature and pressure. The researcher who wanted them put in was curious about large scale, temperature driven, lateral movement of water under the lake ice (I think). 


The ice on the lake had melted out a lot since we'd been out a couple of weeks ago for Lightening Round. There were lots of little caves with icicles in them and the landscape was very rough.

Little ice cave in a bank of ice about 3 feet high on
Lake Hoare

Icicles in the little ice cave

We found the first instrument without much trouble because there was still some cargo out in the center of the lake near where the Limno Team had drilled their hole in the ice and the ablated ice from under the polar haven was still very visible. The second instrument was along the northern shore of the lake about a third of the way down the lake from Lake Hoare camp. Amy had us wear life vests because this late in the summer season it's possible that the moat ice isn't as thick as it seems and/or melt ponds on the permanent lake ice are thinly covered and rather deep.

Looking east back toward camp and
Canada Glacier

Looking west, up valley, toward
Seuss Glacier

We walked down valley a ways across the lake ice, which was rather rugged terrain! We came across a large  melt pond that had refrozen. It was a spectacular shade of light, bright turquoise and had a ridge of ice around it, which was surrounded by a depression or small crevasse that had algal mats frozen into it.

Algal mats, little ridge line, and melt pond

Close-up of algal mats

Amy checking out the re-frozen melt pond

We crossed the refrozen melt pond without incident (and with confidence because we had our life vests on) and continued across the lake in search of the other instrument we were tasked to retrieve. Eventually we decided to trek along the moat and thanks to a well placed flag and good luck we found the instrument we were looking for. Our walk back to camp was mostly along the frozen moat and in the shade of the northern wall of the valley. It was a lovely little hike without any traumatic events, getting wet, or having to search long and hard for the instruments we were retrieving.

Looking up valley (west) along the frozen moat toward
Seuss Glacier in the shade of the norther valley wall

Amy on the moat in her life vest (looking east toward Lake
Haore camp and Canada Glacier)

Amy and me in our life vests!