http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/ en Copyright 2009 Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:19 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Impressions of a Trip into the Dry Valleys By Stephen Pekar As our helicopter lifted off, we quickly started to head toward the western shores of the frozen McMurdo Sound. The “helo” is a powerful machine that swirls with such intensity that the entire craft bounces slightly as the propellers spin above, suspending us in mid air, like a puppeteer suspending his marionette. There to our south lies an enigma that is literally black and white in all regards, Black Island, White island, and Minna Bluffs. As the names suggests, Black Island and Minna Bluffs are black, consisting of bare black volcanic rock, that have been blasted by mother nature's wind, scouring nearly all forms of ice and snow away. It is as if the polar winds seem to converge, blowing adversely along these landscapes stripping them of all their snow-white cover, leaving them naked to the elements with little ability of the viewer to see the relief of their periphery and the crannies of these rugged dark black volcanic hills. The next island over is White Hill, which as one would expect is draped in thick snow and ice. Why do the winds spare their wrath on this hill, but blow with such fury at the island next to it? One is blown with perhaps moist or more gentle winds that permit it being buried by the soft white powder, giving it a far more tranquil landscape than the harsh forbidding lands of Minna Bluffs and Black island. As we continued up, there rising up from behind the blacks hills of Ross Island is the great mount of Erebus, not far behind McMurdo Station, whose frozen top belches fire and rolling smoke. Within its crater lies the center of Hades itself and is hidden to all except that brave its perilous slopes of ice and black jagged rocks, past its gaping blemishes of fumaroles of hot steam and poisonous gases that sweat sulfur and water, creating vast passageways of ice on Erebus˙s skin. For those so inclined, a trip to the rim of this living-breathing mountain, one can gaze down into its interior. It is here where a lake exists consisting of rolling boiling scenes of Hades itself, molten in all manner of fashion. A pool of Earth˙s hot interior churning and frothing to the point that in its fury it explodes, hurling out of its rim molten debris in all directions. Today, man taunts this massive edifice of molten lakes and jagged rocks and ice by putting a live video cam at the rim, so we have a 24-hour TV show of a day in the life of what Gates of Hades must be like from the high capital of the lord of the underworld. As we continued westward toward the Ferrar Valley, we first flew ever closer to the Royal Society Mountains. These majestic peaks loomed larger than at McMurdo Station, with their cliffs of rock laid mainly bare, with only a sprinkling of snow. This is possible owing to their vertical inclinations, which cast snow and ice off, revealing in all of their glory, their naked backs up heaved high into the sky, where only clouds dare reached their icy crest. Within their sides laid the relatively flat layers of an Earth of by gone eras. Some created before all of the continents joined in one great union of a landmass and then only later torn apart to the present continental configurations and before the monstrous sounds of dinosaurs pierced the land. It was a time of warmth that bathed this now harsh ice covered world, a world once covered by simple plants and still nascent fauna that were making their first steps onto land. Now these rocks lay revealed high up stretched across these peaks, revealing the ancient history of this now frozen place. Turning into Ferrar Valley, all eyes peered eagerly into the vast expanse and heights that beheld our gaze. A long nearly straight valley that extended many tens of kilometers, steep mountains lined it sides with the lower half of these peaks all lined up like a huge carving knife had sliced their fronts off, forming a neat row of mountain slopes, crafted by glaciers from times past. Flying into this valley was like entering a mighty gothic cathedral and an awe of silent amazement was beheld by all. Deeper and deeper we flew into this valley of juggernauts of iridescent blue ice hanging in heaps that was once snow laid down, but now transformed from the unrelenting pressure from the snow above into a solid mass so hard and forceful. It is strange that what once was such a soft powdery substance is now this unstoppable mass of harden blue crystals, moving inexorable with unwavering desire, carving deep into the solid rock that it now is perched on, and in many times resting on them in a most precarious manner. ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/impressions_of_a_trip_into_the.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/impressions_of_a_trip_into_the.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:07:19 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/post_7.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/post_7.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:06:28 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/cathedral_rock_in_ferrar_valle.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/cathedral_rock_in_ferrar_valle.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:04:43 -0500 Continuing further into the valley, we passed perched valleys often with a glacier hanging and crumbling off its cliff. Ice and rock embedded in a struggle for dominance; high rugged gray and brown masses that have been vaulted high above the valleys by tectonic forces from down deep versus its cold white and bluish counterpart. These mountains originated from a fiery world of molten rock and the energy that convects from our inner world; forging and thrusting these great spires of rock high into the air. Yet, with all their strength of endurance against the winds of time, they are yet still vulnerable to the unrelenting forces of the ice that continuously scraped and scorned the rocks by their weight and movement, with the inexorable desire of only getting down to the sea, where once achieving this goal, will perish like a moth to a flame. As we traveled deeper into this frozen valley, it was like an art galley of living earth and ice, in which we glided gently past these masterpieces of this harsh land. Then as we neared the end Ferrar Valley, we came upon a sight that completely overwhelmed the senses, for we had entered the wide expanse of the convergence of the Ferrar and Taylor Valleys. Our hovering helicopter flew us into this wild expanse, and through the shock of the sheer openness of the land, pure as the expanse of a heavenly vista, we sailed high above these tongues of the ice sheet, with the high peaks to our west that held back an enormity of frozen water that has been locked up in these icy throes for hundreds of millennium. These rocky carved fortresses against the white plateau of ice have been victorious in years past. Yet, these ice masses pushed and have in the past overridden these mighty peaks and flowed down into these valleys. The remnants of these events are evident by carving of these proud mountains, now stripped down along their sides, exposing nearly flat layers of a now by gone era. Episodes of deposition from once flowing streams and rivers, of beaches where waves of warm soothing water washed over the shores of these now frozen lands are now locked in these rocks. For a person with knowledge of the Earth, they represent frozen time portals of long ago and are testaments of our ever-changing planet. Another layer tells yet another tale, in a later time, these rocks speak of a story when the deep interior of the Earth belched forth its inner molten self, extruding up through the Earth and then coming to rest above these pale brown sands of when early animals were still timidly coming forth onto land. These monstrous layers now form a banding of shades of brown to black from mountain to mountain seemingly ringing every peak in the this valley. As we floated around the back of this intersection of two majestic valleys, we entered Taylor Valley and started to come full circle in our trip. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/ferrar_valley_1.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/ferrar_valley_1.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:03:28 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/ferrar_valley.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/ferrar_valley.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:02:17 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/entering_the_great_expanse_of.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/entering_the_great_expanse_of.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:01:49 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/taylor_valley.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/taylor_valley.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:58:24 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/looking_up_the_valley.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/looking_up_the_valley.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:57:32 -0500 One of the Dry Valleys, most of Taylor Valley lacks the large glaciers that fill both Ferrar and uppermost portions of Taylor Valley, therefore laying bare its desolate ground. Our first landing was on a hill nestled in the middle of this formidable valley. A hill made of grounded up rock and boulders apparently pushed and laid down by glaciers from a time of when this area was filled with ice. Upon landing here, we scurried like little children on Christmas morn, running in this case to spy one vista after another of spectacular ice and soaring peaks. We were several hundred feet above the valley floor, which was covered in hexagonal shapes fashioned by the ice itself, although their appearance looked far more manmade by their symmetrical lay out. However, it was evident that what laid in front of us contained no hint of humanity's heavy hand anywhere. Inside twenty minutes, we were back in the helicopter to continue down to the Commonwealth glacier. Within this “dry valley” were features that appear to be incongruent with dry; small frozen lakes of light turquoise blue, with small braided streams and rivers saddled between Nussbaum Ridge and the mountainsides. Though now locked into place from the frigid conditions, one can imagine when in the summer time, when the Sun moves in the realm of Aquarius in the sky and with it, bursts of sunshine warm the ancient stones and rock, which lie beneath the frozen lakes, melting the ice from below. One would then see expanses of liquid water forming in this “dry valley” that would flow down these ephemeral streams. The dark rock laying on the ground also serve to melt the surrounding snow and ice forming little streams that flow into the channel that crisscrosses along the bottom of this valley. With a never setting sun gilding her beams of radiant energy, the spirits of winter’s cold and dark would be much maligned and would bemoan in envy that the sun so low in the sky can produce such results, ”this is our realm and the sun and her legion of warm golden rays has no place here”. But the sun is unrelenting and warring against her is a most futile ambition. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/landing_on_nussbaum.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/landing_on_nussbaum.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:56:03 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/steve_on_nussbaum.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/steve_on_nussbaum.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:54:24 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/nussabum.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/nussabum.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:53:49 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/streams_and_lakes_in_the_dry_v.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/streams_and_lakes_in_the_dry_v.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:53:05 -0500 We landed in front of the Common Wealth Glacier and thus began the next part of our adventure, with a trail-less path down from the Common Wealth Glacier to New Harbor. This glacier ends at the Taylor Valley. Its vast expanse rides up the hill and disappears beyond the tops of the mountains that line Taylor Valley hiding its true size and dimensions. Cliffs of ice a hundred feet high mark the abrupt end of the glacier. Snow and ice that seemingly looked as if it was flowing off the top, and now frozen, created the illusion of a waterfalls that had been stopped in place. Why did the ice so abruptly end here, one could only wonder? Along the sides of the mountain, scarps or ridges aligned at a certain elevation, almost like nature had constructed a contour of elevation. However, these were formed by when the Earth laid in the throes of the last ice age. A time when although the ice could still not breach over the mountain highs that lie west of here, the ice sheet instead traversed across the entire Ross Sea extending its ice across its entire expanse, burying it and was sufficient in its mass to reach its deep bottom. Then with ice’s great enormity, it slid up this valley pushing boulder and rock alike to form these ridges along the side of Taylor Valley. Our walk down to New Harbor took us along the streambed, now mainly frozen but with hints that the deep freeze of wintertime was finally coming to an end. Areas of thin ice and actual water seeping through, gave the slightest glimpses of Spring˙s arrival. It was a pleasant journey down hill. However, for me, I was anxious as I awaited to glimpse upon the area where I will be co leading my first expedition in Antarctica, New Harbor. http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/commonwealth_glacier_1.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/commonwealth_glacier_1.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:49:32 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/walking_down_the_streambed_in.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/walking_down_the_streambed_in.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:48:13 -0500 ]]> http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/commonwealth_glacier.html http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/2008/06/commonwealth_glacier.html Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:47:02 -0500