5 September 2011 A little hut on the ice

dive hut outside
Journal Entry

Welcome to the Dive Hut! After the divers are all prepared, we are off! Our destination is the dive hut and the dive hole we created. This is how we will gain entry to the world beneath the ice. The dive hut is a really great diving operations platform from which to work. The dive hut is small

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4 September 2011 Let's Get Ready to Rumble...

dive bag
Journal Entry

The Dive Hole So, why did we make that hole in the ice yesterday? To get the worms at the bottom! How do we get to the worms? We go SCUBA diving! ##Let's Go Diving A large part of this expedition depends on the team collecting marine worms using SCUBA diving. SCUBA is an acronym, standing for **S*

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3 September 2011 Which way to the beach?

Journal Entry

Frozen Ocean Most people know that water freezes at 0˚C or 32˚F. That's freshwater, like from your kitchen sink or water in a pond by your house. Most people don't know that salt water, like water from the ocean, can freeze too. The salt actually makes it harder to freeze the salt water, so it

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2 September 2011 Passport to Antarctica and What is IT? Photo # 2

Passport to Antarctica
Journal Entry

Attention Teachers and Families – Join the ‘Passport to Antarctica’ program! Since the summer scavenger hunt series was so successful, I was inspired to create a similar program for the new school year. So, I’m pleased to introduce you to the ‘Passport to Antarctica’ program and look forward to

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2 September 2011 Keep on Truckin'

Bell 212 helo
Journal Entry

Transportation, Continued We got a lot of great feedback from yesterday's piece on Antarctic travel, so we thought we should share just a few more examples. These are some of the more unique modes of transportation down here. Again, special thanks to Tony Buchanan, master of all that is

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1 September 2011 Life is a Highway...

Pisten Bully
Journal Entry

How do you get around in Antarctica? So, I have been driving for about 15 years. I came all this way to Antarctica and the last thing that I thought I would have to do is take a driver training course. However, sure enough, in addition to the technology training, environmental training, lab

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31 August 2011 What if we get stuck out there?

tents
Journal Entry

Survival Gear Yesterday, I shared a lot of the important information from our field safety training with Jen Erxleben. There were so many cool things to share that I thought today I'd show you some of the survival gear that we were trained to use. ##Survival Bag A survival bag is required for

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30 August 2011 Safety in the Field

Mike's face
Journal Entry

Field Safety In addition to the lab safety trainings that we have received, we spent a large part of today looking at safety out in the field. The weather has been a constant reminder that safety outdoors is the most important part of our field operations. We've had several Condition 2 days, as

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29 August 2011 Safety Third. No, that's definitely not right...

scientists safety
Journal Entry

Setting up the Lab Dr. Marsh and his team usually work in Lewes, Delaware. There they have all of their equipment set up for their work. On a normal day, you would find Dr. Marsh, Stephanie and Annamarie working hard here. However, during an Antarctic expedition, they need to bring some of their

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28 August 2011 Do you have your travel buddy?

on the way up
Journal Entry

Getting Outside Sunday is a great day to get outside for a little fun around town. During 'main body', there are many people who enjoy being outside and take advantage of being in a very different environment. There are many options: running, hiking, and skiing come to mind immediately. The

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