Today the Offshore New Harbor Expedition broke camp and headed back to McMurdo Station. We have had an amazing expedition working through massive delays in getting out to camp and once there, managing to stay ahead of the equipment breakdowns that plagued the first week at the field camp, and then having the team work flat out to collect the seismic data in record time. Now we are leaving actually AHEAD of schedule and will have time to return the equipment before Thanksgiving on Saturday.

The day was perfect for traveling by snow mobile or by Pisten Bully as it was sunny, great visibility Observation Hill (the hill by McMurdo Station) was clearly seen on the horizon. We broke camp in record time and by 10:30 were ready this place.

Breaking camp

Brian about to depart on a skidoo.

We left on skidoos, with the Pisten Bully pulling the two Hagglund sleds and the Challenger pulling the Aalenor sled, the seismic sled, and the fuel sled. T

The Challenger and Pisten Bully leaving camp.

The skidoo team blazed back stopping to take pictures and was back before 2 pm. The rest of the team followed and by 5:30 the entire ONH team was back in camp.

A view of the Trans Antarctic Mountains on our way back to McMurdo Station.

Steffan's skidoo on a patch of blue ice.

The rest of the evening was washing up and enjoying the comforts of being back in town.

Today we had the other half of the ONH team go on a field trip into the Dry valleys. This trip took us northward across the Wright Valley and into Victoria Valley, where Ron Sletten and his team are working on modern day sedimentary processes. The trip to Victoria Valley was spectacular going over large glaciers and over one valley after another.

Flying over the mountains toward Victoria Valley

Landing in Victoria Valley.

Ron had a special treat for us and directed the helo onto a hilltop over looking Victoria Valley. It was here that large granitic boulders had been eroded by the wind blasting. What was so interesting about them that it seemed that the wind had eroded them from the inside out. Ron explained that the surface of the rock are changed by the wind blasting, leaving them with a kind of varnish that seemed to protect them.
View image
A ventiform that looked like a helmet.

The result was that they formed shapes that Ron described as walking through a zoo, with many of the rocks resembling animals and other forms. The incredible shapes that we saw amazed everyone.

Granite sculpted into a penguin with a long beak.

A snake head?

A Scott tent made of granite.

A granitic tunnel

Also, the vista here was exquisite, with the various valleys extending out in different directions, surrounded by high peaks. Our walk down allowed us to see what Ron was working on, which was the polygonal shapes formed from expansion and contraction of the ground. While the process is slow, within a short amount of time (geologically speaking) the ground would slowly completely resurface itself. It is amazing that in this frozen world that processes can actually rework the entire surface.

The ONH team in Victoria Valley.

The ONH team walking with Ron toward his camp in Victoria Valley.

Victoria Valley also has a frozen lake that has been wind blasted, resulting in the surface to be smooth. This allowed us to be able to peer through the transparent ice that was lined with cracks down to the lake bottom. It was here that green and brown algae was proliferating. Additionally, the algae was also growing upward and then became frozen resulting in a white delicate forms that laid below us. The ice was so transparent so it felt like we were walking on air, gliding across this underwater wonderland.

The brown and green algae seen through the clear lake ice.

Victoria Lake with Victoria Glacier in the background.

Ron’s camp was also in a remote valley far from other field camps. It was a six-person team, a bit larger than Alan and Adam’s camp, but still without the comforts we have at our larger camp on the sea ice. I tip my hat to them, while it is an extraordinary place to work, it is also a tough place to work.

Ron and Steve in Victoria Valley.


Luke and Luci in the Helo

Today half of the ONH team went on a helo trip up through the Dry Valleys and then a visit to see Alan Ashworth and Adam Lewis's field camp in Friis Hills. It was a glorious trip, first going up Ferrar Valley, entering the wide expanse where the Ferrar and Taylor Valleys meet and then onto Friis Hills, where Adam and Alan awaited us. I had done a similar trip through the two valleys last year (see the 2007 blog for my impressions about what I saw , http://blogs.qc.cuny.edu/blogs/ONH2007/).

The Ferrar and Taylor Valleys.

The Friis Hills camp is in a remote and isolated part of the Dry Valleys, up slope from Taylor Valley and nestled and surrounded by mountains. It was a small camp, consisting of three people (the last being a student of their's). But what it lacked in size was made up in plenty by their hospitality and enthusiasm. After a conversation in their dining tent, we set out immediately to see what they were finding. There finds were incredible. Fossil leaves and branches that were deposited in fine lake beds with ash dates that suggest an age at least 20 million years old.

What these fossils clearly show is that Antarctica was far warmer than today, with alpine vegetation growing. The ONH team was mesmerized by the fossils they were collecting. Although we had three hours, the time flew so quickly that I felt that we had only barely started to scratch the surface of this enchanting and scientifically exciting place.

We continued down taylor valley by helo to our next destination: the New Harbor Camp along the coast of Explorer's Cove.

Here along the coastline, the sea ice has been twisted and distorted by pressure from expansion and contraction, melting and refreezing and forces of from a far that have heaved up the ice in all manner of ways (see the 2007 blog for words about what it looks like).

The coastline at New Harbor, with the sea ice roughness clearly shown.

This evening was the last time that the entire ONH team was together as Howie, Andrea, Joanna and Shakira were leaving for good from the field camp to do video conferencing with students from the around the US.

ON NOVEMBER 21, WE FINISHED COLLECTING SEISMIC DATA!!!!
WE HAD COLLECTED DATA AT 473 HOLES OR 47.2 KM ALONG TWO LINES.
The Offshore New Harbor team has done an amazing job of working flat out since we arrived in Antarctica, first to build the seismic sled at McMurdo, fix all of the equipment break downs that we had while in the field and then setting records for collecting seismic data over the sea ice using this method.

Records set by the Offshore New Harbor Expedition Team

Seismic data collected on sea ice
Most seismic data collected in a season 47.2 km
Longest dip line 15.2 km
Longest non-dip line 32.0 km

Longest distance of seismic data collected in one day on first year ice
4.0 km (done on 11/4)
Most seismic data in one day on multi year ice (6 meters plus)
3.4 km (done on 11/20), previous record: 3.2 km on 11/13

Here is the daily record of seismic data collected over the past three weeks.

NOTE:
On line one, the first 18 km were on first year ice and 14 km on multi year ice.
On line two, the first 2.8 km were on first year ice and the rest was multi-year ice.
Multi year ice was between 6.2 and 6.6 meters thick on Line one and between 6.5 and 7.2 meters on line two.

We tried to finish off the last 7 holes on November 22, but the drilling equipment broke before we could finish one hole. Clearly, the spirits of Antarctic science thought we had done enough. So we started the break down of equipment and of the camp and that night celebrated well into the early morning. That evening, the clouds were producing spectacular vistas for us to view lighting up the camp with gentle hues and shadows that reminded us how special this place is.

During the last four days, the ONH team has went all out over the multi year ice, breaking records (set this season) in obtaining seismic data over 6 - 7 meter sea ice. We have had glorious weather (light winds and mainly sunny skies), with all of the equipment break downs fixed by having various people all pulling together in identifying the problem and then repairing it, without major loss in time. The result is that we are now only 3.3 km from completing the 48 kilometers of seismic data we had set out to do. If the weather continues and the equipment behaves well, we are determined to try to make it to the end by tomorrow.

On November 17, we had several equipment breakdowns (including the drill motor and the winch), but were able to fix them and still do 2.1 km of seismics. We also had a bit of snow. Large snowflakes falling from low clouds with blue sky above them peaking through. The results was a sparkling landscape as the skies cleared.

Stian and Dave by the airgun.

On November 18th, one of our drillers (Kyle Webster) left our camp for permafrost drilling with Ronald Sletten in the Dry Valleys. Kyle was fantastic, working his tail off day in and day out on the drill rig and a great person to have a beer with in the evening. He will be missed.

We had another penguin sighting today.

The Challenger with Mt Erebus in the background.

Later, at 6 pm, the video conferencing team (Joanna, Eric, Steve, Dave, and Shakira) left back to McMurdo Station.

Mt Lister and the Royal Society Mountain Range from the Helicopter.

It was an evening of doing laundry and waking up at 2 am for the video conferencing. the students have been incredible, with great questions and interesting dialogue. I look forward to seeing them next week. When we returned the next day on November 19th, the seismic team had completed 2.6 km more seismics.

The seismic team from the air.

Today, we set yet another new record for obtaining seismic data over the sea ice by doing 3.4 km. we now have only 3.3 km to do. The team is psyched to finish it tomorrow. Today, when I worked with the drilling team, it was all focus and little time for play as we drilled each hole in 15 minutes or less. Mind you, the sea ice thickness ranged from 6.6 to 7.2 meters. Just incredible.

Today, the weather improved beginning with a mild breeze and cloudy skies, improving by early afternoon with sunny and calm conditions. Today was also the day that we finished the first seismic line by obtaining seismic data for the last 1.7 km. This last part had severely broken ice, but the big plowing blade in front of the Challenger tractor was able to shear off the tops of the ice with no problem.

Some of the broken up ice that we had to work through to complete line one.

The Challenger with Mount Lister in the background.

This linked the first 13 km of seismic data we collected before the air compressor problems, with the seismic data that went over the old drill site (CIROS-1) and further westward to where a possible future drill site might be located. We then picked up the seismic cables, all 1,500 meters, with the geophone (sensitive microphones that can pick up the echo of sound waves bouncing off the sedimentary layers below the sea floor), moved over to the beginning of the second line and laid them out.

Brian laying out the seismic cables before we started line two.

We were able to do 1.7 km more of seismics on the second line before we called it quits for a total of 3.4 km of seismics collected today.

The weather forecast is for more great weather on Monday and now we are hopeful to finish sometime during the week before Thanksgiving.

Today we continued to make excellent progress collecting seismic data filling in another 3.1 km of seismic line ONH-1. We started at km 13 on the line and worked our way up to km 16 before we had to stop early. This leaves only 18 holes left on seismic line one to complete. The day was picture perfect once again, with little to no wind and temperatures in the teens by mid afternoon. Being this far east on line one, we were able to gaze up on most of the Royal Society Range, with Mt Lister standing out as the tallest, towering over 13,000 feet.

The challenger with the Royal Society Range in the background.

We had to quit by 1:30 as we had a helo arriving to pick up our current drill rig and swap it out with the one that they were bringing out. The geophones actually picked up the approaching sounds of the helicopter as it approached, which resulted in a quick evacuation of the seismic sled to watch its approach as well as aid in helping.

The Challenger with the helicopter sling loading our new drill rig.

Today was another great day in terms of weather and progress. We made it to the end of the line one today. Reaching flag 321 was a great feeling for all. Kudos go to the entire team, with special thanks to the drilling team, who has worked flat out for so many days.

Steve holding up the most westerly flag for the ONH -1 seismic line.

This represents 32 km from the start of the line and only about 6 km from shore. As we moved along the line over the past couple of days, more of Taylor Valley came into view. It is a majestic scene, with mountains that have had their sides sheared off by the enormous forces of ice sheets now long gone from this valley, resulting in their sides to seemingly all align as one gazes up this valley. Large glaciers lie on top of these mountains, hiding their full nature from our view, but overflow off the sides of in some cases precipitous rocky pinnacles, collapsing down into the valley.

At this moment, Stian and Marv are pulling the seismic cables back to flag 130, which is we stopped when we were still limping along with a malfunctioning compressor and decided to move into the thicker ice so the drillers would not have to wait for the seismic team to shot a hole. Our plans are to start doing seismics on the first year ice tomorrow. We will have to stop at some point as we will have to swap out our drilling rig for another as our’s is needed for Ron Sletten’s permafrost drilling. Hopefully this mix up will not cost us too much time. The plan is to know when the helo is expected and break down the drill rig and then install the new one in about an hour or so. I hope that all goes well. We have been doing so well in making up for lost time over the past week.

Even with this delay, I expect to have the first line completely done by the end of the weekend. Then it is on to the second line, which is half as long as the first line.

Today, we had another great day in the field. The weather has been delightful, with clear blue skies, little or no wind and relatively warm temperatures (low teens F). The seismic team set another record, collecting 3.2 km of seismic data over six meter plus sea ice today. Kudos go out to the drillers and their trusty assistant (Howie), Stian, who has fixed everything that has been thrown at him as well as the rest of the team, a team that always is working flat out to make things happen.

Mt Erebus, an active volcano, and the iceberg we mine for our drinking water.

The ONH seismic team as we head closer to Taylor Valley.

The seismic team with the Ferrar Valley and Glacier in the background.

The seismic team with Taylor Valley behind.

Marv and Dave

The last two days have seen steady progress. On November 10th, the seismic data extended over the CIROS-1 borehole drilled twenty years ago. This marked one of the goals we had set out, to collect MCS data so we can image the greenhouse world sediments recovered from this borehole. On November 11th and 12th we collected a total of 4.6 km of seismics, which extended the line west of CIROS-1 and most probably would be a location for a possible future drilling project. If the weather and equipment hold up, we could be finished with the first seismic line in 3 to 4 days.

Stay tune for more pics and updates........

Over the last few days, significant progress has been made in obtaining seismic data. The price though has been high as we have had a number of equipment failures that Stian and others have been able to fix, often by working long hours into the late evening. But after all said and done, we were able to do at least 20 holes per day drilling through six meters plus of sea ice.

The Challenger tractor on the left pulling the seismic sled and the Pisten Bully on the right pulling the drilling sled. In the background is the Ferrar Valley.

The Challenger Tractor with its reflection in the blue sea ice.

It the weather holds out and the equipment can perform okay, we can be done in two weeks. We are all hopeful that we can finish the second seismic line.

David and Brian in the Challenger.

Steffan working the drill.

A singing & dancing penguin. He was probably celebrating yet another hurdle overcome by the Offshore New Harbor team.

We had yet another obstacle thrown at us: the air compressor that charges the air gun suddenly stopped working. This is a certain showstopper as the only means to shot the air gun is with an operational air compressor. While the flagging team was off setting another record for flagging the line using a transit, the seismic team, with Marv and Stian began to develop a number of options. Firstly, Stian went to work trying to work around the most probable problem; namely that the computer was giving false read outs which caused it to shut off the compressor. People back in town also went right to bat for us and quickly firstly find and get the parts for a compressor that was at the station. The third option that was seized on was calling the manufacturer Bauer, and get a replacement computer for the compressor. All of these options were already in motion by the time the flagging team returned back to camp. Yesterday and into the night, Stian worked on the compressor and in the end believes that he was able to solve the problem at least temporarily. Today, the seismic team was able to get another 21 holes done, even with the problems of the air compressor. The decision was made to move up to the multi-year sea ice for now so the drillers would not have to wait for the seismic team and the air compressor.

On another positive note, flagging was completed today for a total of 481 flags. Steve was on the team most of the time, resulting in walking over 40 km of the lines. It is nice that this part of the work is done.

Steve and Howie at the end of the second seismic line.

During the last two days, we collected seismic data at record pace. Yesterday, four kilometers of seismics were collected, which sets a record for the longest distance of seismic collected in a single day. Kudos goes out to the ONH sesimic team, which did not rest until they reached their goal.

The Seismic Sled being pulled by the Challenger tractor as we went to shoot another line.

A photo of the two drillers, Kyle and Steffan on the drill sled.

Preliminary examination of the data by Marv and his students (Dave and Brian) shows that the data is fabulous and that we are optimistic that Marv (lead geophysicist) will work his magic as he has done for the previous two MCS surveys on the sea ice.

Meanwhile, the flagging team set a single day record today for most holes flagged using a transit of 9.0 kilometers. With the use of the transit, we have been getting incredibly straight and accurate lines. We will finish up the 48 km of flags (that is 480 holes and flags), with the expectation of obtaining that much seismic data.

A photo of Andrea with the transit while working with the flagging team, a smoking Mt Erebus behind.

SEISMIC COLLECTION HAS BEGUN!

After many challenging episodes of showstopping equipment failures we have begun to collect the seismic data. The ONH team once again worked flat out and came up with creative solutions as well as seized opportunities to make tings happen so in the end all of the many trying setbacks were overcome and now we are moving well along the line. Even during the times when we could not collect the seismics, team members flagged the first line using a transit, resulting in precise and accurate locations for the seismic team to locate the places for the holes.

This photo shows Howie drilling a hole a flag for the line, while the Challenger pulls the seismic sled and the Pisten Bully pulls the drilling sled in the distance. Also, in the background are two skidoos following the seismic team. They are all heading out to the end of the line to start collecting the data.

TODAY, THE FIRST GROUP FROM THE ONH EXPEDITION LEFT MCMURDO STATION AND ARRIVED AT THE OFFSHORE NEW HARBOR CAMP.

This morning at at around 10:30, seven personnel from the Offshore New Harbor expedition left for the field camp. There was a flurry of activity when the final word that all was okay with the Marble Point Traverse pulling both the Aalaner Sled and the fuel sled out to our camp. There was a last minute gathering of personnel gear and getting everything down to the sea ice transition where our sleds and equipment were staged.

The arrival of the Marble Point Traverse.

The ONH traverse ready to go.

The hitching of the sleds and then the exit out along the road out to Offshore New Harbor.

NEWS UPDATE: OFFSHORE NEW HARBOR PUT IN TO FIELD CAMP SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 27

After several delays owing to bad weather, it is expected that the Offshore New Harbor Expedition will begin putting into camp starting tomorrow. The first group will consist of seven team members riding out with the Pisten Bully pulling the drilling sled and hagglund sled and two snow mobiles, with the objective of setting up camp. The second group will set out on Tuesday, October 28 with the Challenger pulling the Seismic sled and fuel sled accompanied by three snow mobiles. The third group will helo out after the third video conference to schools. The last group will also helo out after Shakira finishes her webcast with SPRINT.

This is the latest plan for the Offshore New Harbor to put into field camp.

Recon of the Offshore new Harbor area by helicopter was carried today by Luke, Marv and Steve. The first year ice varied between 1.8 and 2.0 meters thick, which is more that ample for the heaviest vehicles we have. The camp site is located on thick smooth ice. In fact, all of the multi-year ice appears to be quite smooth. The first year ice does have some cracks that have refroze. The camp site is located with a view looking up Ferrar Valley, with the Royal Society Mountains behind.

At the Offshore New Harbor camp

Looking up Ferrar Valley.

All of the first year ONH team members just returned from Happy Camper School. Although some of them would not be considered to be happy campers, all came back fine and tired.

After much work, we are planning to leave for the field on either October 22nd or 23rd. This will be dependent on the second Marble Point Traverse that is scheduled for that time. Stay tune for more details.

This is a schematic of how we will deploy out to the field camp.

This map shows the seismic lines as well as the Marble Point Traverse from last year. we expect that the traverse will be slightly different this year.

THE OFFSHORE NEW HARBOR TEAM HAS ARRIVED AT MCMURDO STATION!!

The ONH team arrived on October 10th in the evening at McMurdo Station. See blogs for more details.

Part of the ONH team in the galley at McMurdo Station.

News Update
October 9 10 pm NZT – T+2 days 19 hours

We are back on schedule!!
We will be hopefully be deploying tomorrow, October 10th, as originally scheduled. The weather has improved at McMurdo Station and the second flight made it safety to Antarctica. The third flight is leaving at 1 am this morning (October 10) and we have been combined with flight #4 and are scheduled to leave at 3 pm on Friday (10 pm EDT, Thursday). We were thinking that we would leave no earlier than late Saturday or Sunday, so the unexpected news got us all got pumped up as we were told of the new schedule.

NEWS UPDATE October 9th 8 am NZT
TIME: + 2 days 1 hour
The ONH team has arrived in Christchurch

We have all arreived in Christchurch from the US although a number of adventures getting here. While the first group of the ONH team (Howie, Andrea, and Steve) arrived to Christchurch during the late morning of October 8th, the rest of the group were delayed getting out of LAX, resulting in missing their connection in Sydney to Christchurch (ChC). The result was an arrival to Christchurch after 2 am October 9th. My estimate is that it took some Shakira and Joanna over 35 hours to go from NYC to ChC. But this morning they have were all waking up with cheerful smiles and animated stories of the ordeal.

Latest update on getting to Antarctica
Only one flight has made it to McMurdo Station so far (out of four). All of the others have either been rescheduled or in some cases were boomeranged, which means they were already in flight when they were turned around owing to poor weather conditions. One of the boomeranged flights was over four hours into the flight before they boomeranged for a total of nearly nine hours of sitting in the noisy C-17 military transport plane. There are a lot of anxious people right now waiting around here in Christchurch, hoping to get out soon. People for the second flight just left for the airport and we will hope that they make it. Luci and Luke are scheduled to leave on Friday, if all goes well. I am estimating that the rest of the team could leave as early as this Sunday, October 12 (we were originally scheduled to have left on the 10th). This is not a problem as Marv and I have scheduled extra time for situations like this.

We are planning to go to the CDC to try on our ECW gear (Antarctica issued clothing). I will provide an update later this afternoon.

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The Offshore New Harbor Expedition was in the Daily News on September 23, 2008. Check it out here.

On July 26 and 27 over 20 people from nearly a dozen educational and media organizations particpated in a meeting to organize and develop the educational activities planned for the offshore New Harbor Expedition. The meeting was extremely successful in creating a rich and exciting set of activities and curricula for students from middle through high school level, which will be employed during the Antarctic expedition.

Activities include:
Live and canned video conferences from Antarctica to schools around the world.
Contact Global Nomads Group (www.gng.org) or the ARISE Program (http://andrill.org/education/arise) for more info on how to particpate.

Video blogs from Ms Brown (teacher accompanying the expedition), Mr Koss and Ms Balbas (QC students)
go to the ice stories website at www.exploratorium.edu/poles/index.php for how to be part of this.

Written blogs from Mr Koss and Ms Balbas (QC students)
go to the Reach the World website at wwwreachtheworld.org for more info

Weather data will be collected by a weather station at the remote field camp. These datat will be transmitted back to the GLOBE website (http://www.globe.gov/r) as well as be used by other orgs for after school teaching.

Audio conferencing will be carried out from McMurdo Station and the remote field camp. Go to the US Satellite Lab Inc. website at www.us-satellite.net for more information.

A film crew Global Nomads Group will also accompany us to document the expedition.

Each week there will be a different theme, complete with activities, curricula and interviews.
Weekly themes
Week 1—Theme: Antarctica Today, the basics
Scientist answers questions—possibly a live chat

Week 2— Theme: Climate Change, present, future, and past
Teacher and Scientists—live video conference

Week 3— Theme: Ice on the Move, where the ice is, how big, how it fits into the global geography, climate, etc.
Teacher and Scientists—live video conference

Week 4—Theme: Seismic Survey and how it helps identify drillsites
Teacher and Scientists—live video conference

Week 5—Theme: Reading Antarctica’s Rock Cores
Activity—from book—share online
Teacher and Scientists—live video conference

Week 6— Beyond this expedition
Additional learning about climate change
Teacher and Scientists—live video conference
Upcoming expeditions: IODP Wilkes Land, ANDRILL Coulman High drilling project, bases on the Moon, etc.

In early September the complete guide for students, teachers and schools to particpate in this exciting, high impact scientific expedition will be available on the ONH website (http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/offshore_new_harbor/index.htm).

On June 19th, about 30 students and four teachers and staff from the Promise Academy visited Queens College. The group was split into two with each group getting a tour of the campus as well as having a hands on experience examining sediments through biocular stereo microscopes under the supervision of Dr Pekar and his student, Sabah Syed. These sediments were obtained from the western part of the Ross Sea in Antarctica in over 400 meters of water. During their studies, they were able to place constraints on sediment type as well as source of the sediments. The staff at Queens College and the students and staff from the Promise Academy all had a wonderful time sharing and learning.

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March 28, 2008
An article on the front page of the New York Times was published about the upcoming Offshore New Harbor Expedition and Ms. Shakira Brown, a school teacher from the Promise Academy, which is a public charter school located in Harlem. Also note that it was one of the ten most emailed articles for March 28, 2008.

read the entire article by going to the link: NYT article about ONH