Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 10:37
Forums
Ice Core Drilling in West Antarctica

hi from the 8th grade class at mound valley kansas we had a couple of questions to ask.

1.) How do you guys travel around to places do you walk or take snow mobiles?

2.) How far is Kansas from where you are located?

I appreciate you taking time to talk to us and answer our questions your friends Ashley, Dallas, Caitlin, and Mason

Wed, 11/18/2009 - 23:25

Heidi Roop

Hello to Mound Valley!
 This is Peter Neff, one of Heidi's fellow ice core handlers on the WAIS Divide project. I've worked on the Greenland ice sheet before, but this is my first time in Antarctica and I'm glad to be here. I'm also excited to share my love for science with all of you in Kansas!
 Great questions!
  We use many types of transportation in our ice coring work. To fly from New Zealand to Antarctica, Air Force pilots from McChord Air Force Base in Washington State (my home state!) take us aboard C-17 transport jets. They are giant planes, and we sit in humongous cargo holds with various supplies coming down to the ice with us. At McMurdo Station on the coast of Antarctica, there are many vehicles used by ours and other science projects: helicopters, bulldozers, track vehicles, graders, vans, trucks, and many more! Once we're on the ice, we'll take slightly smaller propellor C-130 planes piloted by the Air National Guard from New York State. These are specially equipped planes for work on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica---they have GIANT skis placed over their wheels to land on snow runways! Finally, in our field camp we either walk short distances from our tents to the cafeteria building (it's really just a big tent!) or the drilling building. If we have lots of gear to move around or far to travel, we are all trained to drive snowmobiles. However, we try to minimize the use of snowmobiles because of the THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of gallons of fuel we use to fly out to our site!
 
 Finally, the distance from Kansas to Antarctica by plane:
Kansas to Los Angeles is 1159 miles,
Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia is 7502 miles,
Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand is 1328 miles,
and from Christchurch to McMurdo Station on the coast of Antarctica is 2382 miles.
Add these up and you'll know just how very far away we are! Now you know why we try to use less fuel once we get to our camp---it's not easy to get there.
 
Thanks very much for your questions, Ashley, Dallas, Caitlin, and Mason.
 Enjoy the warm temperatures you have in Kansas---it's cold down here!
 -Peter