McMurdo Station, Antarctica

I look out the window of the library of McMurdo Station, Antarctica, beholding the magnificent mountains of the Royal Society Range in the distance. They extend seemingly forever along the icy McMurdo Sound and rise to up to over 13,000 feet tall. I cannot help feeling a sense of wonder at such a beautiful and dynamic landscape, in a way that reaches to the depths of my bones. When I stop amidst the busy preparations that have occupied me and the rest of the Hercules Dome science team during this last week, I am continually amazed. Firstly, that I am even here. Secondly, at the character of this landscape of Antarctica, which I am only beginning to become familiar with.

We touched down on the McMurdo Ice Shelf last Monday after about a five-hour flight from Christchurch, New Zealand. As we careened high above Victoria Land about an hour before landing, the first glimpses of Antarctica came into view. We crammed beside one of only a few small circular windows on the C-17 aircraft, trying to get a view of the continent between the ice crystals that were plastered to the outer window surface. The ice-covered terrain, and the offshore sea ice (frozen sea water that floats on the surface of the ocean), came into view. Antarctica had been ever-present within my mind for the three years of my graduate research and studies, and a place that prompted my curiosity for many years before. And yet here it was in my reality. As I stepped out of the aircraft onto the ice shelf, half in disbelief and half in child-like wonder. The mountainous landscape was awesome in the truest sense of the word – Mt. Erebus, the second tallest volcano in Antarctica, demanded the most attention, while features such as Mount Terror, the Royal Society Range, Black Island, White Island, and others of the Ross Archipelago rose just as magnificently.

We are currently staying at McMurdo Station, the largest research station in Antarctica with a the population in summer usually reaching about one thousand, while in winter residence declines to a few hundred. It is located at 77 degrees 51 minutes South, 166 degrees 40 minutes East. This small "town" was built in 1955 and contains eighty-five buildings. The station is the logistics hub of Antarctic research, including that of disciplines such as geology, glaciology, oceanography, and astrophysics.

And for those of you who love geology, this local area is mostly composed of exposed Cenozoic (< 66 million years old) basanitoid, or alkalic olivine basaltic, volcanic rocks, which occur both as thin flows and pyroclastic cones in this area. Olivine, clinopyroxene, and opaque oxide minerals exist as phenocrysts in these basanitoid rocks. Other volcanic rocks include trachybasalts, which are rocks of intermediate composition between basanitoid and phonolite, and anorthoclase and mafic phonolite. These rocks constitute a larger petrologic province of volcanic belts, which trends parallel to the Transantarctic Mountains for thousands of kilometers (Goldich and others, 1975).

Among the many impressions of McMurdo Station that have been imprinted on me since arriving, I will note a few. It is seemingly a relaxed town, and full of very friendly and helpful people of many origins and motivations – contractors, organizers, scientists from the U.S. and across the world. There are impressive and odd-looking machines and equipment parked and on the move around town, some looking like a cross between a semi-truck, a bus, and a tractor, with names such as “Ivan the Terrabus.” Only a couple animals reside in and around town at this time of year, namely Brown Skuas and Weddell Seals. The seals enter onto the surface of the endless sea ice of the McMurdo Sound through cracks, and bask motionless in the sun. The skuas, which remind me of large gulls, fly occasionally through the McMurdo sky. Weather is relatively warm and overall clear – up to only several degrees below zero Celsius (i.e., freezing). Windy and cloudy skies were present during the week and temperature dropped, but fair weather persisted this weekend. Lastly, I cannot miss mentioning that we have no night here – the sun is present all the time, and moves in a circle around the sky – amazing, and kind of eerie. It will stay this way I think until February.

From touching down in Antarctica, to packing, to shipping our gear to the South Pole Station, to trainings, and other preparations for the deep field, it has been an amazing and whirlwind of a first week. We learned about environmental awareness, familiarization with refuse and fire safety in the station, Antarctic survival skills, altitude awareness, and snowmobile trainings. One in particular was a “shakedown” – a one-night camping stint on the ice shelf in front of Mt. Erebus, simulating what it will be like in our camp. I am glad to report that we survived! And although it turned windier and colder through the evening (or day … these terms are confusing here), our “snowy owl” sleeping bags, mountain tents, tons of cold-weather gear, and warmed-up dehydrated meals (some, unfortunately, well past their ‘best by’ date) kept us overall warm.

Logistics remain in motion, and I continually wonder at how this field season will play out. There is concern over how and when we will get to our field site, Hercules Dome, because it is not a regular landing site for large "Herc" LC-130 aircraft. In addition, our science gear has yet to arrive (fingers crossed!). We look forward to another busy week. More to come soon.

~Annika

References Goldich, S. S.; Treves, S. B.; Suhr, N. H.; and Stuckless, J. S., "GEOCHEMISTRY OF THE CENOZOIC VOLCANIC ROCKS OF ROSS ISLAND AND VICINITY, ANTARCTICA" (1975). Papers in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. 332.