Many people that work at McMurdo have regular jobs. I’ve talked to janitors, drivers, teachers, managers, construction workers, the cooking crew, and the medical staff. Most of these people work 6 days a week and have Sunday off. They also generally work 7:30-5:30 and having the evenings off. With all this free time down here at the bottom of the world, they have a huge assortment of activities to keep them entertained and educated during their time off.
In the hall in front of the galley, there is a huge display with all sorts of activities like soccer, Spanish class, computer classes, movies of all sorts, band practice, live music, hikes, tie dye and crafting clubs, and card nights. They can also go work out in the gerbil gym, socialize at 1 of the 2 bars, relax at the coffee bar, or just watch a movie or play a game in one of the lounges that’s found in each dorm.
What would you want to do for fun in Antarctica? What would you want to learn?
Usually we work late into the night and don’t really have much time to participate in these events though a few of us ICE AGED folks have seen a band, attended a party, tried out some of the games in one of the bars, and ridden bikes in the gerbil gym. This Sunday some of us had a bit of time off and after doing laundry, making phone calls, and taking care of all the little things, we were able to hike to a very important historical place, hut point which you will learn about in upcoming journals. We also hiked up the hills around McMurdo for some absolutely amazing views.
Tina on a hill with McMurdo in the distance
Julie, Stacy, and Jennifer on a hill with a view of the Sea Ice
With all of the interesting science going on here at McMurdo, we also have two special events each week. Each Wednesday a different researcher gives a presentation to the science community here on base. This talk is usually pretty detailed and focused on their science. The first week we learned about research with Weddell Seals. Did you know they have 34 different vocalizations? Did you know that they roll while diving to depths of 300 meters? Since they mainly eat fish on dives during daylight, what do they do in the winter when it’s dark for 24 hours at time? The last question is what this group, which involves a UCSC banana slug, Terri Williams, is still trying to determine.
The second Wednesday the talk got canceled because the researchers were stranded out at their field camp because of bad weather. Stay tuned to see what else we learn in upcoming lectures.
Sundays we also have special presentations that are more geared for the general community. Last Sunday we learned a little about the history and animals of lakes in the dry valleys – the 2% of the land that is not covered in ice here in Antarctica. These lakes have bacterial and calcium structures that provide insight into early earth!
This Sunday we were proud to have our very own Paul as the presenter of the evening! Though he has a hearing problem, having lost 90% of his hearing, he simply informed the audience of this challenge and had Stacy help with questions from the audience.
Can you find Paul? The audience is clapping as Paul, on the right in blue, starts his talk.
With a packed room, Paul shared stories and showed pictures of what life was like here at McMurdo in the 1960s and 1970s when he was first here. The military ran the show back then and women were not allowed on base! Environmental conservation was also not an issue back then. Instead of bathrooms connected to a sophisticated sewer system, the men used buckets called honey pots which were simply dumped out in the water in front of McMurdo. Lab waste, which included seawater, antifreeze, and formaldehyde, was also dumped straight into the streetocean. Though rules are much stricter now, we are still seeing the effects from this pollution, which is also one of the things that our group is studying now in Stacy’s 14 monitoring sites.
How long will it take for nature to clean up this waste that people dumped on the ice 50 years ago?
Paul also shared a historical perspective of how holes used to be built. In the historical age of the early 1900s the poor men would spend days using ice axes and buckets to make holes through the 20-foot thick ice. In Paul’s time they moved on to chainsaws and bricks similar to the ones we used at Happy Camper School. Paul grew tired of this cumbersome process and told hilarious stories of his transition to using dynamite to blow up holes in the middle of the night. Safety was not such a concern back then! In fact Paul also dove to depths of up to 180 feet while we now need SCINI to dive that deep as new dive tables limit SCUBA divers to 130 feet. Thankfully Paul made it through those years alive despite another crazy story about falling through the ice and surviving the freezing cold water for 10 minutes. With nobody to help him, he managed to climb out and onto the ice and our dedicated Paul even continued work as his frozen clothes provided nice wind protection.
Paul shared many stories about the history of McMurdo and the critters under the ice.
Paul also enlightened everyone about the science that he’s been doing for the past 50 years.
Do you remember from my past journals what he has placed down here in the ocean and what he’s been studying?
Paul explained that he got interested in studying marine biology here in Antarctica because the underwater world is actually quite stable and predictable. While it’s stormy, freezing, and harsh on land, in the water it’s always -1.86C! The water is the place to be in Antarctica!
While some ecologists specialize in food webs or in what one species does to another, Paul has focused on everything. He has spent many years of his life down here in Antarctica studying critters and the interactions and connections between the different species of critters on the seafloor. Many of the animals that are found here are the same ones that you can find in the Monterey Bay and in other parts of the world: sea stars, sea anemones, starfish, sea spiders, tunicates, soft coral, sponges and arthropods to name just a few.
Predation, who eats who, is one aspect that Paul has focused on. Do you know which seafloor animals eat which ones? How many sea stars do you think anemones eat in one month?
This seastar was eaten over a period of 3 years
By putting different predators in and out of cages and checking on them year after year, Paul learned that predation rates as well as growth rates are really slow here. Some sponges didn’t grow for 27 years! This is why he is back here with us this year – what happens to these sponges after 50 years? A group of animals that has intrigued Paul for many years is sponges. There are over 100 species of sponges down here of all shapes and colors. Some of these are ancient – living for over 500 years. The white volcano sponge has particularly intrigued Paul as these 7 foot tall creatures seemed to have escaped predation until Paul learned that white starfish actually eat parts of them.
Where is that diver? (In a sponge!)
Paul also discovered that there is a little starfish that starts life as an herbivore, eating mostly diatoms. Once it finds a particularly rare sponge that grows really fast, it devours it, grows to 30 inches, and then has millions of babies. The things that happen when we’re not watching!
Paul also found out that some species change what they eat. One type of starfish, a red starfish, is usually an herbivore that eats diatoms. However, conditions can change and then the red starfish will change diets and start eating meat – the white starfish that eats the sponges. It really is a circle of life!
Another interesting finding for Paul was a collection of white blobs on the seafloor. These turned out to be the remains of seals that Shackleton and his men might have eaten back around 1908. Further experiments with dead seals on the seafloor shed light on an interesting story involving who eats them. First one kind of bacteria comes in that releases sulfur as it feasts on the seal. The only animal that can withstand the sulfur is a sea urchin that goes in with its claws to make holes in the seal so it too can eat the seal meat. Together the two animals polish off the seal. Did you know sea urchins could do that?
One question that Paul has not been able to answer involves a gangplank that sank from a boat in the 1950s. Nothing settled on it for 25 years and then Bush sponges took it over for 10 years. Next anchor ice lifted and removed them. Last came volcano sponges that grew huge in 15 years. Why did these volcano sponges settle on this artificial surface and not elsewhere and why did they take over when they did?
In all, Paul said his years here in Antarctica were the best years of his life. Though there is still lots to learn about what drives changes in the ecosystem, Paul provided many answers about who eats who and why and he had the most amount of fun doing it!
We love having Paul on our team, not just because of his infinite wisdom and experience, but also because his eternal smile, his positive nature, and his hilarious stories keep us smiling and laughing.