Another Day of Sediment Sampling
Since we have over 250 sediment samples to collect in a short amount of time, we spent the day collecting more samples. This time we headed out for Arrival Heights. To help make the trek easier, Terry borrowed a truck to take us up the hill.
Terry Palmer, Steve Sweet and Andrew Klein are excited to drive a truck to and from Arrival Heights.
Joni Kincaid tests the GPS remote while Andrew Klein looks on.
Arrival Heights
Arrival Heights is located in an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA 122) approximately 1.5km north of McMurdo Station. ASPAs are areas that are protected from human development and were established through the Antarctic Treaty. There are currently 71 ASPA sites in Antarctica. Arrival Heights is home to equipment that studies the upper atmosphere, trace gas monitoring (particularly the ozone), aurora and geomagnetic studies and air quality surveys. Since these projects are highly sensitive to air pollution and electromagnetic disturbances, they are protected by ASPA.
A map shows the protected area of Arrival Heights. Courtesy of Brad Herried and Claire Potter, Antarctic Geospatial Information Center.
Scientists began working at Arrival Heights at the end of 1959, when the Auroral Radar Station was installed. The station recorded the aurorae that occurred 500 - 1000 miles to the North of McMurdo Station. Aurorae are brilliant shimmers of green light that occur in night skies near the magnetic poles. They occur when charged particles from the sun (solar wind) are pushed into the atmosphere by the Earth's magnetic field. The Auroral Radar Station researched the nature of aurora and how it affected radio communications. In the 1960s - 1980s, more equipment was brought to the station to study the ionosphere. The ionosphere is the upper layer of the atmosphere that is ionized due to the sun's energy.
Terry Palmer, Andrew Klein, Steve Sweet and Joni Kincaid enter the protected area of Arrival Heights to collect samples.
Evidence of Volcanoes
Once we hiked to Arrival Heights, we found our sampling sites using GPS. We then collected sediments from each site to test for contaminants. Arrival Heights sits along Hut Point Peninsula, which was formed by a line of volcanic craters extending to Mount. Erebus. While walking around the area, I noticed a lot of volcanic rocks, which is typical around McMurdo station. I could tell they were volcanic because they were dark brown or black and had holes in them. Rocks that cool quickly are typically dark brown or black because the minerals inside the rock do not have time to form. These rocks are called basalt. Not all volcanic rocks are dark though. For example, pumice is a volcanic rock that is white or grey. If a rock has holes in it, it is often because there were once gasses in it that escaped during fast cooling. The soil that we collected there is composed mostly of volcanic rock, which was deposited from past eruptions and magma flows from Mount Erebus.
Andrew Klein collects a sediment sample at Arrival Heights.
An example of the basaltic, volcanic rock that is found throughout Arrival Heights and McMurdo Station.
Questions
Why do you think we parked the truck and hiked one kilometer to Arrival Heights instead of driving right to the sampling area?
Do you think the rock pictured below is volcanic? Why or why not?
What kind of rock is this? Photo courtesy of USGS and the Mineral Information Institute.
Look at the rock carefully for clues. How do you think the rock above formed? What kind of rock is it?
Math Connection
Arrival Heights is one of 9 specially protected areas on Ross Island. If there are 71 ASPA sites in Antarctica, what is the percentage of sites just on Ross Island?
If we collected 21 samples yesterday and 46 samples today, and we need to collect a total of 250 samples, how many more samples do we need?
What is the percentage of samples we have collected? What is the percentage of samples we need to collect?
Cool Careers in Antarctica
Meet Jeffrey Huffman.
Meet Jeffrey Huffman. Jeffrey is an aviation maintenance supervisor. That means he is in charge of making sure the planes and helicopters are working well and are on schedule to fly. Jeffrey retired from the air force and decided to travel to Antarctica since he has been to every other continent--he had nowhere left to go! He is from Colombus, Ohio and became interested in aviation and flying because his father did similar work in the Air Force. This is his first season in Antarctica. Jeffrey's most memorable experience so far is seeing Emperor Penguins on the runway. Luckily they decided to move out of the way before the C-17 plane that was trying to take off had to stop. If the penguins had decided to stay put, the C-17 plane would have to wait. Humans are not allowed to disturb animals here in Antarctica!