23 November, 1997

Shackleton     11/23/97

Hi Everyone,

The morning came very slowly since the wind howled and blew snow all 
night long.  The storm that started yesterday came from the north while 
the other storms had come from the south.  The north storms are from the 
ocean and we got a lot of snow because of it.  When the morning finally 
came, I had to dig my way out of my tent.  The snow has now filled all 
the holes it can in my tent so it does stay a little warmer.  The sun had 
another halo around it and it even looked like it had peaks coming from 
the halo as I crawled from my tent and put my shovel away.  The ground is 
getting harder to see as the snow falls.  Since there is nothing but 
white around even the clouds it gives a cool effect.  

Once out at the site, we had to dig the pit that we were working in out.  
The snow had drifted higher that me.  I am 15 inches tall and it was a 
lot higher in places.  It started to look like a sief sand dune that you 
would find in the desert.   The snow dunes (drifts) were all over the 
place and had even filled in any foot prints on the ice where we had 
walked.

We finished our project today and then started working on packing things 
up and making sure that our work was as correct as we could get it.
Going back to camp, I met Dr. Doug Rusch from Maine.   He used to teach 
earth science to ninth graders.  I got to see his neat maps and projects 
for the students.  He is working on drilling a hole down to the rock on 
the dome with hot water.  They will drill more than one hole and many 
different length holes.   When they get through, a team of scientist from 
Cal Tech will place instruments to find out how the ice is stretching up 
and down.  They know how much it moves but not how it goes up and down.   
It sounded kind ofneat but they had not started to drill yet - so I will 
not get to see it.

I wonder how long it takes to make a hole in ice with just hot water.  
Maybe you could try and let me know how it works.   All you would need is 
some ice and a funnel and real hot water.   Place a chunk of ice on a pan 
and the funnel on top of the ice.  Pour hot water into the funnel and 
time it to see how long it takes to make a hole.   If you change the 
temperature of the water, do you think the time will change?  You may 
like to check that too!
Just remember if you are playing with hot things to be real careful cause 
I do not want you to get burned.  Talk to you tomorrow!!!!!!!




SHUTEY    11/23/97

Last official workday for the project for Joey and I.  We will finish up 
the permeability readings and then start to pack.  The wind from the 
storm had howled all night and had blown the snow into the tents and into 
dunes in front of everything.  First thing in the morning is to shovel 
your tent out and get a path to follow around the dune that had built up 
with the last storm.   On arriving at the site, the first thing again 
will be to shovel out the pit that we are working in.

Not a real busy day since we are finishing up and then starting to pack 
to get home.  The pilots from the SOAR program are from Alberta Canada 
and have offered to make chili for dinner.  It is again Sunday and the 
cooks have a deserved day off.

The storm has finished as far as blowing and snowing but the ground fog 
is moving in.  The Sun Dogs were again beautiful this morning.  It is 
hard to get a picture of them as they are so terribly large that they 
will not fit into my camera readily.  Everyone is out trying and 
hopefully someone will succeed and mail the rest of us a copy.

The new group in camp are composed of young people who have just gotten a 
degree for the most part.  When the first arrived, they certainly stood 
out as they had cut their hair in Mohawks or completely shaved it off.  
They come from Dartmouth, Princeton and such places, and this was their 
first trip to the Antarctic.  They had dared each other to do it and it 
certainly gave the camp something new to discuss.   This group will work 
on drilling a number of different length holes with hot water. They hope 
to test the vertical movement of the ice.  The stress and strain of the 
ice will be tested with a strain gauge that is lowered into the hole.   
Because they are using hot water, there will not be any core.  The core 
rig that will drill the 1000 meters to bedrock stands not to far from 
this new drilling proceedure.  They plan to drill to the rock (1000 
meters) in less than a day.  I am not sure when the core drill will 
finish as they have not started as yet.  
The deep core drillers do have a really neat trench built.  That huge 
trench was hand dug by removing snow blocks to make the pit.  It just 
seems to go deeper and deeper.  It is cold enough to keep the core cold 
and from breaking as it is removed from the dome.  Temperature on the 
upper level will be about -20 degrees celsius all the time.   I think 
someone said the pit is about 20 feet deep.  The drillers have been 
rumored to use it as a run for sleds that works real well on the slide 
area that the core will go down into.   This again is a rumor but it also 
rumors that they have a hot tub that is real nice if anyone cares to join 
them.   Of course the summer here has not really arrivd but spring is 
bringing the temps up close to zero and maybe even higher.