McMurdo Science

On Sunday they had an open tour of the Crary Science Lab. I spoke to elementary teachers who are here from Germany, New Zealand, and US about their involvement with the Andrill project and their goals of bringing their experience and education back to their students. (www.andrill.org/iceberg) I then found out about the monitoring of the active volcano Mt. Erebus and saw several videos of its mini explosions. In the marine lab, I watched divers coming in from a dive after collecting several different species of mollusks & invertebrates. One researcher is studying a species of fish that is also found off the coast of New Zealand. The fish are different in Antarctica as it has adapted to have a type of anti-freeze in its system.

All of this science geeky stuff was enough to distract me from the realities of getting to the Pole. They keep giving us warnings about the altitude and how funky and off we will feel once we get there. First, because of the density of the air, the very low 2-3% humidity, the faster rotation of the earth at that point, and the elevation, it will physically feel as if you're at an elevation of 11,000 ft. They warn us of how tired we will be, gasping for breath and needing take several rests while walking off the plane. There are researchers here from Mayo Clinic studying elevation sickness and several of us have signed up to participate. Besides being very tired and wanting to sleep all the time, the cold is significantly different than at balmy McMurdo as the -90F wind chill hits you hard in the face as you deplane. On top of adapting to all of this, I'm nervous about also being thrown into our 10 hour days (60+ hour work weeks) the day after we land. We are currently scheduled to leave tomorrow evening. To combat elevation sickness, they are constantly pushing us to drink copious amounts of water and eat plenty of carbs once we get there. The tricky part is not to load up on too much water before the LC-30 plane ride as all they have for a bathroom is a little curtain and a small bucket with a funnel and hose. I'm very eager to get acclimated and into a routine.