29 November, 1999

McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica

Monday

Julie, Mark, and Maite made it back to West Lake Bonney today. The trip looked doubtful when I left the dorm room this morning. The wind was howling and snow was blowing everywhere. This is much different from the almost balmy weather we have been experiencing at McMurdo. Saturday and Sunday seemed so bright and warm to me. The ice was melting into little streams around town. I have found that on days like this, I do not need to wear my heavy parka. I have been keeping warm with just my wind jacket. Either the weather is warming up or I am getting acclimated to the cold! I checked the high and low temperatures for yesterday and to my surprise, the high was only 25 degrees Fahrenheit! It seemed much warmer to me. I suppose the brightness of the sun and the lack of wind fooled me. Today, it feels cold again.

Bess and I have had our hands full with this gas chromatograph (GC). I fussed with it this morning. When I returned from lunch, Bess suggested that I work on my journals. When that was completed, Bess told me that she was "baking the column" which means that she has turned up the temperature of the column in the GC from its normal room temperature to 100 degrees Celsius. She has done this in an attempt to burn off any junk that may be sticking to the inside of the column where the gases flow. This junk would interfere with the readings that we are getting on the computer. Bess continues to like the data that we are obtaining, but our work time has greatly increased because often we must run samples three times instead of twice to get values that are similar.

The group from Lake Bonney returned about 6:30 p.m. and after supper, began processing the samples. Another day...more samples....more analyses!

ANSWER TO YESTERDAY'S QUESTION: The ice on the Polar Plateau moves about 10 meters each year. As a comparison,the alpine glaciers in the Dry Valleys, such as Hughes Glacier, move about 6 meters each year and in some small mountain basins, the ice does not move at all!

TODAY'S QUESTION: What is a crevasse? In answer to this question, I will profile the ITASE team tomorrow!

The next sunset in Antarctica will be February 21, 2000! Unbelievable!

Sharon

JUST FOR KIDS!!!!! Julie, Mark, and Maite went back to West Lake Bonney today. I didn't think the pilots would fly the helicopters because the wind was howling and snow was blowing everywhere! It was beautiful! It was much colder than it had been on Saturday and Sunday. The sun was so warm on the weekend that little streams of water ran through McMurdo's dusty roads, making them quite muddy! Today, it is too cold and cloudy for the ice to melt.

Bess and I have had our hands full with this gas chromatograph (GC). I fussed with it this morning. It still is not working properly! We lost an entire day of work! We only have about 16 days left!

ANSWER TO YESTERDAY'S QUESTION: The ice on the Polar Plateau moves about 10 meters each year. The alpine glaciers in the Dry Valleys, such as Hughes Glacier, only move about 6 meters each year and in some small mountain basins, the ice does not move at all!

TODAY'S QUESTION: What is a crevasse? To answer this question, I will profile the ITASE team tomorrow!

The next sunset in Antarctica will be February 21, 2000! Unbelievable! How many days will we have to wait?

Sharon