Written 3 Jan 2008 3730 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 26 to - 38 °C Because of the rotation of Earth, the atmosphere is thinner near the poles than near the Equator and middle latitudes. This thinner atmosphere means high latitudes also have lower atmospheric pressure and significantly less oxygen than at the same elevation at lower latitudes. For example, we are now at 3700 meters above sea level, and this corresponds to more than 4400 meters (14,400 feet) in other areas of the world. Today we calculated the amount of oxygen we have to be about 53 % of that at sea level. It is like breathing with one lung, and feels that way too! We breathe like walruses after short walks, and gasp desperately for air when we are doi...

Thursday 3rd January 2008 The sun is shining, the sea is flat and we have been back in action since 0500 working the eastern section of the CEAMARC sampling grid. From the bridge I drink in a rare pristine environment. I see two whales, some Adelie penguins and I am thrilled to glimpse the mighty Mertz one last time. Station 52 takes us to a point around about 17nm from the tip. The horizon is a distant but brilliant white scar with big tabular bergs jagging the horizon. Harvey Marchant is a marine biologist based at the ANU in Canberra. In front of us is his book ‘Antarctic Fishes’. Harvey says he’s not especially a ‘fish’ man but confirms that he is a trout fishing enthusiast and has an obvious appreciation of nature. ...

Written 6 January, 2008 3608 meters a.s.l. Maximum & Minimum temperatures: -29 to -35 °C Nearly all the way from Troll Station to the Pole of Inaccessibility we have driven along the crest of the continent. On this last leg towards the South Pole we have left the ridge and will gradually be descending to lower ground. This implies different patterns of winds and snow accumulation. We are starting to see the effects of this in the shape of rougher snow drifts and more sastrugi, so the ride is getting bumpier. However, there are positive side effects to this. One is that it is much easier for the drivers to...

Friday, 4 January Is today yesterday or already tomorrow? Hard to tell sometimes. It is daytime, isn’t it? Anyway, some time in the evening the first box corer brought a nice piece of sea floor onto the deck. A quarter of a square meter of a sandy something garnished with a few brittle stars. Could be from any place, but isn’t: in front of us is the first sea-floor sample from the plateau below the summit of Maud Rise, a solitary mound rising some 3,000 m from the Weddell abyssal plain. Still 2,000 m below the surface. An island in the vastness of the deep, so-to- speak. And possibly an oasis of life? The sand turns out to be a foraminiferan graveyard. Foraminiferans are single-celled animals with hard shells which can accumulate to thick sediment layers. And in it there...