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Written 30 Dec 2007 3710 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 29 to -37 °C The ice in Antarctica holds two thirds of all freshwater in the World, including lakes, rivers, groundwater, glacier ice and moisture in the atmosphere. While the average ice thickness is around 2000 meters, the deepest ice has been measured to 4776 meters. Still, large parts of Antarctica are not well mapped with respect to ice thickness. This figure is important for estimating Antarctica’s role with respect to global sea level. Thus, on the traverse we use low-frequency radar to measure ice thickness alon...

Yesterday morning at 1:45 am we all headed off to the US Antarctic Program passenger terminal at the Christchurch airport in New Zealand. I’d had about 4 hours sleep so was feeling a little groggy, but not too bad. We managed to get changed into our cold weather gear and were on the C17 transport plane by 2:30am. I was glad that we were on the jet, rather than the Hercules prop plane, the jet is way faster and has a cavernous interior. With only 30 or so of us on board there was plenty of room to spread out too. The plane was chock full of supplies for the Antarctic. Bottles of compressed gas but also a huge quantity of beer. I sat facing a 75 cubic feet of Guinness, one of only 10 or so pallets. We sat on the plane for what seemed hours, before being told that one of the ...

Thursday, 27 December We are happy. Happy about our successful first step on the way of teasing secrets out of freshly caught deep-sea isopods from 3000 m depth. Which means, we have extracted DNA and after the first successful runs prepared extractions all day long, highly motivated. How we got there: After META, our epibenthic sledge, had brought the samples for us on deck, we divided the sample immediately by weight and live-sorted one-half in the cooling container at 0°C and preserved the other half in precooled alcohol at –20°C. While live sorting we got a first impression of the creatures that awaited us: bristle worms (Polychaeta), amphipods, several forams and, among many other taxa, our target group, the isopods. (By then we were exhausted but ha...

Thursday 27th December 2007 We can see icebergs again. There is sunshine and blue sky and the continent appears as a ribbon of white satin with a hem just starting to fray at the edges. The trawls are back in action at double time, completing three stations between midnight and lunchtime. The whiteboard is rotating through a series of ticks, and shortening the average time for each trawl. The Sitrep trumpets success: “We have so far caught and documented about 28 different species of fish from the trawl samples. The fish assemblage appears to be quite different from that found at the coastal sites off the French research station, Dumont D'Urville, about 40 Nm west southwest of our current position. Many of these fish are new records for the ...

Written 28 Dec 2007 3672 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 26 to -35 °C We have selected site 33 as a science stop for a chance to have a closer look at some unusual scenery. That there is immense variety in the details on this uniform, white plain does not mean that we do not appreciate the unusual. On this location the satellite images show a series of large-scale ripples in the snow, and we have been curious about their origin. High in expectations we stopped here last evening. Sure enough, some kilometers out west we could see a long shadow under the horizon. A slope! Two of us went out to have a closer look and take some radar profiles, and found the ripples to be several elongated rises, up to 5 kilometers long, runn...

Written 27 Dec 2007 3672 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 25 to -37 °C One of the more common questions we get is if we don't get tired of looking at the same unchanging scenery day after day, the same endless and level whiteness? No, we don't. One reason is that studying subtle differences in the snow surface is one of our reasons for being here in the first place. But there is more to the snow than just crystal size, permeability and density. The surface is carved and shaped by relentless and ever changing winds, and takes on an immense variet...

Written 27 Dec 2007 3672 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 25 to -37 °C One of the more common questions we get is if we don't get tired of looking at the same unchanging scenery day after day, the same endless and level whiteness? No, we don't. One reason is that studying subtle differences in the snow surface is one of our reasons for being here in the first place. But there is more to the snow than just crystal size, permeability and density. The surface is carved and shaped by relentless and ever changing winds, and takes on an immense variet...

Written Wednesday, 26 December The phone in my cabin range at 8:00 this morning – two or three hours earlier than I would normally get up for my noon to midnight shift in the chemistry lab. Normally when the phone wakes me up it’s because there’s a problem with one of our instruments, but today I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. It was the chief scientist calling to say that it was my turn for a helicopter flight, and could I be on the flight deck in an hour. The daily flights are done so that the biologists led by Jan van Franeker (AKA, The Flying Dutchmen) can count the wildlife in the area. They take along one extra person each day to help spot animals and enjoy the view. ...

Written Tuesday, 25 December, Christmas Day When I woke up this morning and looked out the window snow was slowly falling trough the air. Even though we are located at 67 degrees south in the ice and cold, snowfall is quite rare at this time of the year. Perhaps a little Christmas present form above. As described in the log yesterday, we had a very beautiful and special Christmas celebration, officers, crew and scientists, all together. It’s quite special when everyone is sharing the same feeling, a wish to be home with loved ones at this very day, but still being able to have a very happy and cheerful ...