Will the Banded Birds Please Stand Up!

Journey to the South Pole

The Real Antarctica

The Best of the Seven Continents!
MCMURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA– On November 18th, we actually got the go ahead to head south! Our C-17 airplane was ready and the weather at McMurdo had finally cleared, allowing us a small window to make the journey to Antarctica! As with any travel on an airplane, it was quite involved and we needed to arrive early at the departure terminal. Once at the terminal we had to weigh all of our bags and ourselves! Let’s just say it is a shock when you weigh yourself with an extra 40+ pounds of emergency cold weather gear and your carry-on! We were then given a boarding card and had to sit in a small theatre and watch a safety video! After waiting for an hour or so we got the gree

Pack Those Bags…Tomorrow We Go!
November 17th, 2009 CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND– We got all of gear organized and we are scheduled to fly to McMurdo Station, Antarctica tomorrow! This video gives you an idea of what we will be wearing at WAIS Divide. Where we will be working, the temperature is usually around -30°C so we are going to need lots of clothing! Watch Mr. Cox from Heritage High School in Vancouver, Washington as he demonstrates what we will be wearing on a typical day when we are working at camp. Hopefully we will all stay warm. A little about Tommy: Tommy Cox is a core handler/science technician with the WAIS Divide Ice Core Project. Back home, he is a student teacher at Herit

New Zealand Adventures
November 16th, 2009 CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND– Bad weather and a lack of flights to get camp set up, caused a week-long delay for five of us in Christchurch, New Zealand. We visited beaches, rainforest, and mountains. New Zealand is truly a beautiful country. I have a hard time believing this is my life! I have to keep pinching myself. The trip has just begun and already I am having the time of my life! Enjoy this photo show of our time in New Zealand!

Bay of Sails
BAY OF SAILS, ANTARCTICA– One of the main goals of SCINI is to explore new areas. Our first target this year is Bay of Sails. I selected this general location because it is an “iceberg graveyard” – a place where icebergs collect due to winds and bathymetry. Located across McMurdo Sound on the Antarctic continent, it will be an ideal comparison site to Cape Evans on the Ross Island side of the sound, where we looked at iceberg impacts last year.

Bad Weather Day
November 12, 2009 BEACON VALLEY, ANTARCTICA– The early morning started out with blustery winds and soon snow from the polar plateau started blowing in; it was by far the worst weather we have experienced during this field season. So what do we do on a bad weather day… work. I took the video camera out in the field to capture the harsh working environment. We began drilling the glacier ice and despite the weather conditions the day started well as we were recovering beautiful, clean, bubbly glacier ice. But soon the borehole reached a small sandy-pebbly layer within the ice and the pace of drilling came to a crawl. Drilling sediment rich ice releases enough